📚 🍩 ❓❓❓ 😱 5000 plants. 60000 photos. 25 years of notes. Estimated pages: ??? OH NO.

After posting about our search for a mysterious fragrant Cerbera, this arrived in our inbox:

"Bless you all for finding this and sharing… Love those books your research cats are hunting through. Where do I get those, too?"

Smokey & Sunshine looked at each other. Then at the books. Then at the donuts.

Sunshine: I knew someone would ask about them.
Smokey: About the plants in the photo?
Sunshine: No. The books. People want to read them.
Smokey: Most of those books don't exist. We made them up for the photo.
Sunshine: "The Apocynaceae Family" sounded very convincing. Very distinguished. Like the Corleone family, but with more flowers and fewer offers you can't refuse.
Smokey: The Corleones were also toxic. So the comparison holds. Did you notice you spilled donut glaze on the cover and called it peer review.
Sunshine: That is simply how great botanical discoveries are made.
Smokey: That explains the investigation board. And the suspects list.
Sunshine: The point is — now people want to read the books. All of them.
Smokey: The books. Do. Not. Exist.
Sunshine: Exactly. Which is why we need to convince the Top Tropicals humans to write them. They have 5000 plants, 60000 photos, and 25 years of notes. The raw material is right there.
Smokey: That would be a very large book.
Sunshine: Excellent. We can call it The Encyclopedia of Plants That Smell Better Than Donuts.
Smokey: That narrows it down to exactly one chapter.
Sunshine: A very good chapter though. Jasmine alone would fill at least twenty pages.
Smokey: While we wait for the humans to write it, the actual Top Tropicals plant encyclopedia is at toptropicals.com. Over 5,000 plants. No donuts involved.
Sunshine: ...yet.

👻 When plants grow wings...

🌴 Twilight in the garden. Smokey is holding a glowing pumpkin. Sunshine is sipping cocoa.

Sunshine: "Smokey, why does that plant look like it wants to fly away?"
Smokey: "That’s the Bat Lily - Tacca. It’s rare, it’s weird, and it’s in bloom just in time for Halloween."
Sunshine: "Figures. You always find the spooky ones."

Meet the Bat Lily (Tacca)

Tacca is also called the Bat Lily or Devil Flower. This tropical wonder grows bat-shaped wings and foot-long whiskers. The black form (Tacca chantrieri) looks straight out of a gothic dream, while the white one (Tacca nivea) is ghost-like and elegant.

Some of our plants are blooming right now in the nursery — true Halloween magic! Blooms are delicate and may not travel, but the plants are strong and will flower again soon in your care.

Black Bat Lily (Tacca chantrieri) with dark maroon wings and long whiskers

White Bat Lily (Tacca nivea) in bloom with wide ivory wings

"The White Bat Lily (Tacca nivea) is bold and sculptural, with oversized ivory wings that command attention. Its pale bracts stretch wide above clusters of deep maroon flowers, and long, silvery whiskers spill gracefully through the foliage. In filtered light, the plant seems to glow from within — elegant, crisp, and perfectly balanced between the strange and the beautiful. If I could pick, I’d go with the White Tacca. It feels more architectural, more balanced — those oversized wings catch light in a way that shows off every vein and curve. It looks engineered by nature, almost like an alien design prototype that actually works.

The Black Bat Lily (Tacca chantrieri) feels alive with shadow. Its dark maroon wings and wiry whiskers make it look like something that fluttered out of the jungle at dusk. The bloom’s layered structure and near-black sheen give it a quiet power — mysterious, understated, but impossible to ignore. But if I were designing mood lighting for a greenhouse at night, the Black Tacca wins. It’s subtle, mysterious, like a secret only visible up close. Together, they’re perfect opposites — yin and yang of the tropical underworld: white for daylight, black for moonlight." — says Tatiana Anderson, Top Tropicals Plant Expert

👉 Collect Tacca plants:

Black - Tacca chantrieri

White - Tacca nivea

Green - Tacca leontopetaloides

Sunshine Boosters Winter Use

The magic fertilizer in action

Do you remember that Sunshine Boosters fertilizers can be applied year-round?

As natural fertilizers, their scientifically created formulas provide perfectly balanced nutrition for your plants throughout the year. Follow the instructions on the labels and apply Sunshine Boosters with every watering. Give your plants extra boost during winter months! The fertilizer amount is balanced, adjusting proportionally to the water amount, which is tailored to the plant's winter needs. Unlike dry fertilizers, Sunshine Boosters can be used all year without fear of burning plants with excessive nutrient lockup.

Those who visited on B-Farm in Sebring, have noticed our little garden by the office, with plants that are always happy and vigorous - year around. They are irrigated automatically with Sunshine Boosters using the Robuster injector. We are proud of our "crazy banana", it is taller than the building, we honestly have never seen a banana of that size! The solution we are using there is Sunshine Robusta (also available for pick up in 2.5 gal jugs).

Save on Sunshine Boosters with the discount code above!