Volunteer Park Conservatory cycads, and orchids, visitors will find banana ("Musa"), Bird of Paradise ("Strelitzia"), "Anthurium" and ginger (Zingiberaceae) in this house. The conservatory’s orchid collection, which began as a gift from Mrs. Anna H. Clise in 1921, is also found in the Palm House. Orchids are a large and diverse flowering plant family composed of more than 20,000 species. The conservatory’s collection includes representatives of the largest genera – "Bulbophyllum", "Epidendrum", and "Dendrobium" – as well as commonly cultivated genera such as "Cattleya" and "Phalaenopsis". Transporting endangered orchids is prohibited by the Convention of International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) and many
Flowering plant in exceptional cases. The characteristic feature of angiosperms is the flower. Flowers show remarkable variation in form and elaboration, and provide the most trustworthy external characteristics for establishing relationships among angiosperm species. The function of the flower is to ensure fertilization of the ovule and development of fruit containing seeds. The floral apparatus may arise terminally on a shoot or from the axil of a leaf (where the petiole attaches to the stem). Occasionally, as in violets, a flower arises singly in the axil of an ordinary foliage-leaf. More typically, the flower-bearing portion of the plant is sharply distinguished from