Begonia

This pleasant surprise showed up last week.  It grew from an "abandoned" planter relegated to a corner in the backyard.  My first reaction was 'Wow, you look familiar'.  I was pretty sure I knew what it's called but I couldn't come up with the name.

Google search time.  I started with "variegated flowering plants", clicked on images and browse through hundreds of pictures.  Then I started over with "heart-shaped leaves plants", again clicked images and voila!, it's a begonia.

Back to Google search, this time I typed 'begonia'.  As soon as I saw American Begonia Society I knew the "begonia world" would be huge.  Onto Wikipedia to try and identify the species.  According to Wiki "the plants are monoecious, with uni-sexual male and female flowers occurring separately on the same plant.  The male contain numerous stamens and the female have a large inferior ovary and two to four branched or twisted stigmas."

After hours of reading, I learned that begonias are either cultivated for their leaves or their flowers.  The ones cultivated for their leaves are quite stunning, with colors that are just as exotics as any flowers from the rainforest or some other remote far away place.  I want the ones with variegated purple leaves but I didn't find  a picture at public domain image so I can't show it here.

I decided that this beauty is a male begonia with showy variegated leaves even though they're green. :-)