Flora of Indonesia
The "flora" consists of many unique varieties of tropical plants. Blessed with a tropical climate and around 17,000 islands, Indonesia is a nation with the second largest biodiversity in the world. The flora of Indonesia reflects an intermingling of Asian, Australian and the native species. This is due to the geography of Indonesia, located between two continents.
The archipelago consists of a variety of regions from the tropical rain forests of the northern lowlands and the seasonal forests of the southern lowlands through the hill and mountain vegetation, to subalpine shrub vegetation. Having the second longest shoreline in the world, Indonesia also has many regions of swamps and coastal vegetation. Combined together, these all give rise to a huge vegetational biodiversity.
There are about 28,000 species of flowering plants in Indonesia, consisting 2500 different kinds of orchids, 6000 traditional medicinal plants used as Jamu., 122 species of bamboo, over 350 species of rattan and 400 species of "Dipterocarpus", including ebony, sandalwood and teakwood.
Indonesia is also home to some unusual species such as carnivorous plants. One exceptional species is known as "Rafflesia arnoldi", named after Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles and Dr. Thomas Arnold, who discovered the flower in the depths of Bengkulu, southwest Sumatra. This parasitic plant has a large flower, does not produce leaves and grow on a certain liana on the rain forest floor. Another unusual plant is "Amorphophallus titanum" from Sumatra. Numerous species of insect trapping pitcher plants ("Nepenthes" spp.) can also be found in Borneo, Sumatra, and other islands of the Indonesian archipelago.
List of endemic birds of Indonesia
Most endemic birds are in the Wallacea region of eastern Indonesia. Sulawesi supports twelve endemic bird genera. Of all Indonesian endemic birds, about sixty-one species are threatened: thirty-seven species are listed as vulnerable, twenty-three are endangered and eleven species are listed as critical on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.