This is a plant that I thought was brilliant as soon as I saw it in the Princess of Wales Conservatory at Kew Gardens on my visit in June. There are a couple of reasons why I like this plant-the deep red colour is fabulous and the flower is really interesting and different to any other flower that I have ever seen.
Overall, I couldn’t find much about this delightful herbaceous perennial, but I will share what I have found out. It belongs in the Zingiberaceae family, which is the ginger family. The meaning of the binomial name is as follows:
- Etlingera–this epithet honours Andreas Ernst Etlinger who was a botanist in the 18th century.
- Hemisphaerica-comes from two Greek words, hemi meaning half and sphaer which means a ball or globular.
Stems grow from an underground rhizomes and can reach around 2.5 metres tall. The flowers appear on sperate stems that are shorter than the ones holding the leaves.
Indonesia, more specifically the islands of Sumatra and Java, is home to this delightful plant, where the climate is wet and tropical. It prefers full sun and a moist and fertile soil.
- Https://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=etlingera+hemisphaerica
- https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:942363-1