Some Cold Hardy Heliconias For Southern California

PAGE 8 THE BULLETIN / AUGUST 2005 

Some Cold Hardy Heliconias for Southern 

California 

David Lloyd, Banana Dave-Select Tropicals, 1452 La Habra 

Dr., Lake San Marcos, California 92078 USA 

Email; dlloyd@cts.com 

I confess. I’m a heliconiac. I use palms to complement 

my heliconias. But I’ve come to learn that you palm nuts like to 

set off your palms with heliconias. Whatever your perspective, 

these plants are wonderfully complementary, a combination 

that occurs naturally in the tropics. Palms provide an open, airy 

canopy that heliconias love. Heliconias provide a lush, colorful 

understory that accentuate the structural beauty of palms. It’s 

no coincidence that palm and heliconia people tend to be both. 

So here are some heliconias that will work for you in 

Southern California, at least if you have a frost free environment 

as I do here in Vista, California. I live fairly close to Jeff 

Brusseau and typically experience minimum temperatures of 

37°F 2 or 3 times a year. 

H. schiedeana. Let’s get this old California standard 

from Mexico out of the way first and clear up some nomenclature 

confusion that abounds. This should be called the California 

heliconia. It is quite common here and has been for years. 

This is the one you see at the LA Arboretum, the Huntington, 

San Diego Zoo, Balboa Park and Quail Botanical Gardens. My 

guess is that it had its origins 

in the great southern 

California estate gardens 

of the early 1900s as I got 

my first one early in the 

‘60s from a patch surviving 

in the ruins of the 

Child Estate in Santa Barbara. 

For some reason it 

has been sold in the trade 

as “latispatha” in the San 

Diego area. Probably because 

at one time Quail 

had it labeled as that and 

the lath house at Balboa 

Park still does. The Huntington 

tried to get it right 

but unfortunately misspelled 

it in such a way 

that it could be confused with a different species H. schneeana. 

I’ve even had H. schiedeana sold to me once by a reputable 

palm nursery as a H. collinsiana [a much desired Mexican red 

pendant I’ve not had luck with so far]. It is also commonly sold 

as “a really neat red heliconia”. The plant is a spring to early 

summer bloomer and although not showy, the inflorescence is 

attractive. The plant itself tends to flop, get wind tattered and 

sun burnt. Overall it looks better in a wind protected, shady 

spot. A more compact form ‘Fire and Ice’ is coming out of tissue 

culture and is now in the trade. Another form ‘Fortin’ has a 

very large distichous inflorescence, up to 18 inches in habitat, 

that would make you very happy. If you have John Kress’ book 

on Columbian heliconias, look at the cover which is a picture 

of a H. burleana. ‘Fortin.’ Looks just like that but with yellow 

sepals. But I’ve not had luck blooming it here (it has reportedly 

bloomed in a garden in Los Angeles) and the plant is extremely 

floppy. 

H. angusta. This 

hardy species from southern 

Brazil comes in 3 colors, 

yellow, red and orange. 

It is cold hardy, 

compact, upright and 

wind resistant. The plant 

looks good all year. It has 

not been a reliable 

bloomer for me, but the 

blooms are quite attractive 

and it will bloom in a pot. 

It’s a spring bloomer here, 

Christmas time in Hawaii. 

Thus the common name 

“Holiday” or “Christmas” 

heliconia. The Yellow 

goes to about 5 feet. Red 

and orange plants are half that size. They do well for me in full 

shade, but can take sun also. It needs lot of nitrogen to keep it 

green and seems to need constant moisture. 

H. spissa. There are 2 forms. The Mexico Red is the 

most common. It has upright blooms, pinkish red. Similar to H. 

schiedeana, but fuller and showier. The plant grows 5-6 feet 

and has naturally lacerated weeping leaves that give it a split 

leaf philodendron look which is very attractive. It is one of the 

few heliconias you can probably identify by the plant. The 

other form, Guatemala yellow, is just as hardy, but has not 

bloomed for me yet. 

H. latispatha. There are many forms of H. latispatha 

and they vary in size, hardiness, and color. They all have a 

deep keel to the 

bracts which have 

a long elegant taper 

in best conditions. 

H. latispatha 

will definitely give 

you that tropical 

look. The hardiest 

is the Orange Gyro 

which is quite 

prevalent in Mexico 

through Central 

America. It was a 

little slow and tender 

to get established 

but now 

holds up during 

cold weather fairly 

well and has 

proven to be a consistent 

bloomer for me in the fall. It will run a little bit, and is 

subject to sun burn. Mine look best in shade. I have a Red- 

Orange Gyro form I call Sun Bird which I find quite beautiful 

but it needs a warm winter to hold its canes and bloom. Distans, 

aka “Road runner”, was very difficult for me to get started 

and is even more cold sensitive than the prior form. However it 

comes back from cold knock down quickly in warm weather 

and being a smaller plant can bloom in a summer’s growth. 

Watch where you plant this one though, it’s not called Road 

Runner for nothing.

PAGE THE BULLETIN 8 / AUGUST 2005 THE BULLETIN / JANUARY PAGE 20059 

H. bourgeana. 

This plant from Mexico 

is amazingly hardy and 

wind resistant for having 

such huge leaves. The 

plant alone is a beautiful 

tropical statement but the 

inflorescence is what will 

make you say: this is the 

heliconia look I want. 

Only thing is I’ve had 

only one bloom so far. 

Standard color is purplish 

red, satiny finish. But it 

comes in red, pink and 

even yellow. 

H. tortuosa. ‘Red Twist’, ‘Yellow Twist’. If you get 

only one heliconia, get this one from the Central America highlands. 

It’s very hardy. 

Takes sun or shade 

and has a nice, clean, 

upright appearance 6- 

8 feet with a lobster 

claw type bloom. The 

colors are variable 

ranging from red, 

orange, yellow. It’s a 

reliable summer 

bloomer for me and 

I’ve also had a second 

bloom in fall. In 

the small heliconia 

collection I’m building 

at Quail Gardens, 

this is the highlight 

so far. 

H. subulata. This may 

be the hardiest, but probably does 

not have the showy bloom that 

most people want. It’s a very 

variable plant from South America. 

I have 2 forms, a rosy pink 

(grows in Oakland), and a scarlet 

red. The pink form holds it 

blooms for up to nine months and 

seems to bloom throughout the 

year so a good point is that 

you’re likely to always have a 

bloom active at any time of the 

year. The scarlet form which I 

obtained from Fred Berry and 

thus call “Fred’s Red” runs about 

9”. 

H. champneiana ‘Maya Blood’. Although this species 

from Mexico has not yet bloomed for me, it so hardy, its huge 

paddle leaves are so attractive that I recommend trying it for the 

foliage alone not to mention the gorgeous bloom that surely 

someday someone in California will achieve if not me. 

H. nutans. This is a pendant that Jerry Anderson has 

grown and bloomed at his Oceanside home. I just recently obtained 

some from Jerry and there is no question about its hardiness 

after last winter, but I have not seen the bloom. 

The following heliconias I do not consider easy or 

even possible for Southern California, but because they are the 

ones most Californians ask about, here’s my take: 

H. rostrata. The famous “Parrot’s Beak”. This is the 

one everyone knows and has likely tried if they’ve tried a heliconia 

at all. The rhizomes are hardy enough, but the plant is on 

the weak side and does not take wind and cold very well. I have 

no trouble growing H. rostrata in a sheltered situation, but have 

had no luck with blooms. However, Gary Barnard, a heliconia 

enthusiast in Los Angeles reports tropical-like blooms in his 

sheltered back yard. In his exposed front yard he has poor results. 

I have reliable reports of others who have bloomed it and 

bloomed it well. So go for it in a courtyard environment. 

The Lobster Claw. This is a form of H. bihai of 

which there are many varities and hybrids. There is actually a 

Lobster Claw I, II, III, a Giant Lobster Claw and one I saw in 

French Guyana which could qualify as Lobster Claw IV. Varieties 

of H. bihai in general, including the Lobster Claw, are marginal 

for me. But it could be a case of “mi jardin es no su jardin”. 

H. psittacorum. There are probably over a 100 varieties 

of this species which is sometimes generally referred to as 

the parakeet heliconia. These are small heliconias originating 

from the Amazon basin. They love sun and heat and look really 

good here in the summer, better than in the tropics where they 

tend to be leggy. But I have found they all decline below 50 

degrees. I have heard that near the coast they come back from 

winter knock down to bloom the following summer. But for me 

that has only lasted a few years at best and with only 1 variety 

‘Andromeda.’ They are planted as annuals in New Orleans as 

they are one of the few species that can bloom in a season. 

When I retire to Borrego Springs in the next year or so, I will 

try these there. 

H. chartacea ‘Sexy Pink’. This is only for those who 

can grow Sealing Wax palms in California. Unfortunately my 

list of what will, won’t, should and could work in California is 

far too long for this article. Those results I hope to publish soon 

in a future issue of the HSI Bulletin. 12 years of testing 300- 

400 varieties (it seems like thousands) at considerable expense 

and travel has taught me that most will not work. When I described 

my experiments to a heliconia expert from Hawaii, he 

exclaimed “My God, you’re conducting an Auschwitz for heliconias.” 

Still there are some winners and some strong candidates. 

No doubt there are more to come with new species, hybrids 

and forms being found all the time. 

Author’s post script: following publication of this article 

in the Palm Journal of the Palm Society of Southern California, 

Heliconia bourgeana bloomed again, and Heliconia 

champneana ‘Maya Blood’ bloomed for the 1 st time since procured 

from Fred Berry over 8 years ago. 

Book Review 

Bernard Fischer, P.O. Box 27, Nylstroom 0510, Republic of 

South Africa, Email: afrpalms@power-net.co.za 

Cultivo, Cosecha y Poscosecha de Heliconias y Flores Tropicales 

by Victor Maza Barros. 

The Spanish title of this book translates as Cultivation, 

Harvest and Postharvest of Heliconias and Tropical Flowers. 

What a pity that it is not available in English as I am quite sure 

it would appeal to a large number of people in the tropical cut

THE PAGE BULLETIN 10 / JANUARY 2005 THE BULLETIN / AUGUST PAGE 20059 

flower industry. Its focus is the hands-on task of not only growing 

these remarkable plants but also looking at the many factors 

surrounding their selection, quality control, packaging and marketing, 

which make it a commercially worthwhile venture. 

The text is written in a matter-of-fact, largely nontechnical 

style but those technical terms that are unavoidable 

have their meaning explained in a simple glossary. The book as 

a whole is well organized and to the point from the table of 

contents to the tables, the different aspects of production, climatic 

requirements, site selection, sanitation, pests and diseases 

and then on to chapters on harvest and postharvest. Aspects 

like propagation, hybridisation, quality control, durability, 

weight of flowers, packaging and storage are written in a manner 

which helps the potential producer avoid unnecessary mistakes 

but reaffirms the need to constantly reassess all the processes. 

Useful examples are given of flow diagrams which show 

how to make certain tasks more efficient, for example during 

the harvest, washing or packing stage. 

Of the 197 pages, 19 are colour photographs showing 

many of the relevant species, hybrids or cultivars referred to in 

the text. With 28 blank pages, I felt they should either have 

been used for more photographs or a radical reorganization of 

the book should have been undertaken to reduce them to a 

minimum. 

Finally the extensive bibliography cited would be useful 

to anyone wanting to gain further insights. 

The book is bound in soft cover and printed by Impresos 

Begon, Ltda., Medellin in 2004. Enquiries can be made 

to the Jardin Botanico Joaquin Antonio Uribe via their e-mail 

address jardinbo@epm.net.co. 

That Twisted Heliconia × rauliniana 

R. A. Criley 1 and Janice Y. Uchida 2 1 Department of Plant and 

Environmental Protection Sciences, 2 Department of Plant and 

Environmental Protection Sciences, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, 

HI 96822 

Abstract 

As part of a research study on growth and flower production 

of 20 commercial heliconia cultivars, plants were established 

at the Waimanalo Research Farm (Oahu) of the University 

of Hawaii in July 1999. This report focuses on Heliconia × 

rauliniana Barreiros. Five plants in 7.6 L pots were planted at 

spacings of 2.5 M in row, with between row spacing of 3 M. Beginning 

a month later, newly emerged shoots were tagged about 

every four weeks. At flowering, the shoots were harvested and 

leaf counts made. The information derived from the data include 

time frame from shoot emergence to flower, rate of shoot production, 

percentage of shoots from each tag date that flowered 

and the periodicity of flowering in a two year period. The range 

of times from shoot emergence to harvest was 208 to 450 days. 

In the first 12 months following planting, the average cumulative 

new shoot production since planting was 77 shoots per plant. H. 

× rauliniana evidenced periodic flowering (blooming principally 

from April to July) behavior that suggested it is a short-day 

plant for flower initiation. 

Introduction 

This research was undertaken as a part of a larger project 

funded by a USDA Special Grants Program for Tropical and 

Subtropical Agriculture (T-STAR agreement 98-34135-6783) to 

evaluate heliconia species for their adaptability, productivity, 

and suitability as cut flowers. H. × rauliniana is a purported hybrid 

of Heliconia marginata with H. bihai with a reported 

blooming season of September to April (Berry and Kress, 1991) 

and was a very productive cultivar during the study period of 

1999-2001. It is suitable for either cut flower or landscape use. 

The plant habit is an erect musoid herb 3 to 5 meters tall. The 

pseudostem terminates in an inflorescence bearing inconspicuous 

greenish flowers in bracts that are mostly red with a yellowgreen 

tip, borne on a red rachis that becomes contorted as it 

elongates. 

The specific objectives of this study were 1) to determine 

the rate of shoot and flower production, 2) to determine the 

time from shoot emergence to harvest of the inflorescence, and 

3) to determine the effect of season on growth and development 

characteristics. 

Materials and Methods 

Five plants of H. × rauliniana in 7.6 L pots were transplanted 

into a prepared field at the Waimanalo Research Farm 

(Oahu) of the University of Hawaii on 1 July 1999. The between-row 

spacing was 3 M and the in-row spacing was 2.5 M. 

A drip-emitter irrigation system was installed initially that provided 

36L water/hr/plant, and irrigation was provided twice a 

week for 3 hours each time. The system was changed to a spray 

stake (24 L/hr twice a week for 3 hours each time) after 10 

months as the clump diameters had increased beyond the range 

of the drip emitters. Beginning a month after planting, shoots 

that had emerged in the previous month were identified with 

color-coded tags representing the month of shoot emergence 

(SE). While every effort was made to tag every shoot, inevitably, 

some were missed; thus the percent of flowering shoots harvested 

exceeded 100 for some months. At flowering (harvest = 

H) the shoots were cut at ground level and leaf counts were 

made. At least 3 bracts were open when the harvest was done. 

From the data we derived information on the rate of 

shoot production, percentage of shoots from each tagging date 

that flowered and the development time from shoot emergence 

to harvest (SEH). Data-recording operations were performed 

at 28-30 day intervals in the first year (1999-2000) and at 2 week 

intervals in the second (2000-2001); thus the mean values for SE 

H reflect the variation among shoots that emerged over a 30- 

day period. Estimates of development time were derived from 

these data in comparison with other heliconia species (Criley and 

Lekawatana, 1995). 

Figure 1. Mean shoot emergences per plant per month from July 1999 

through August 2000 for H. × rauliniana.

PAGE THE BULLETIN 10 / AUGUST 2005 THE BULLETIN / JANUARY PAGE 2005 11 

Results 

About three months after planting, SE began to increase 

from 2.8 new shoots per plant per month in September 1999 to 

12.2 new shoots per plant in June 2000 (Fig. 1). In the 12 months 

following planting, the per plant average was nearly 80 new 

shoots (Fig. 2) with a total of 387 shoots from 5 plants . Figure 2 

Figure 4. Mean number of days to harvest from shoot emergence based 

upon the month of shoot emergence for H. × rauliniana 

Figure 2. Pattern of cumulative shoot emergences from July 1999 

through August 2000 

Figure 5. Range of days to harvest from shoot emergence based upon 

shoot emergence dates from July 1999 through August 2000. 

Figure 3. Flower yields of five plants of H. × rauliniana at each harvest 

in the period March 2000 through May 2001. 

shows the number of shoots tagged and flowers produced from 

them. For some of the early SE tagging dates, 100% of the 

shoots produced an inflorescence, but overall, 54% of all tagged 

shoots were harvested. Thefts of ready-to-harvest inflorescences 

from the experimental plots decreased the final yields and 

counts, while flower abortion accounted for much of the losses. 

H. × rauliniana had comparatively brief periods in both 

2000 and 2001 during which many inflorescences could be harvested, 

but there were also periods, principally September 

through March with little or no flower production (Fig. 3), a contrast 

to the report of Berry and Kress (1991). The days from 

SEH varied with the time of year when shoots emerged (Fig. 

4). During the July to December 1999 SE period for which 95 

shoots were recorded, SE H ranged from 287 to 208 days, but 

in 2000, during the January to August SE period the 138 tagged 

shoots took from 450 to 261 days to produce an inflorescence 

(Fig. 4). For each shoot emergence month, there was usually a 

range of days until flowering with the greatest variation in the 

December – January shoots (Fig 5). Since data were recorded at 

30 or 14 day intervals, greater precision was not possible. 

Shoots produced during fall 1999 took fewer days to 

reach harvest than did shoots that emerged in winter (January 

2000), while shoots that emerged during summer 2000 took 

longer than 1999 shoots to mature and flower (Figs. 5 and 6). 

The differences ranged from about 450 days for January shoots 

Figure 6. Number of days from shoot emergence to harvest for H. × 

rauliniana based upon month of harvest. No inflorescences were harvested 

between Oct. 2000 and Mar. 2001, so these months are omitted. 

(5 flowers) to 208 days for December shoots (17 flowers) and 

314 days for June shoots. Viewed from the date of harvest (Fig. 

6), emergence to harvest periods increased from about 245 days 

for flowers harvested in April to June of 2000 (87 flowers) to 

about 345 days for flowers harvested in April to June of 2001 

(178 flowers). 

Leaf number subtending the inflorescence may be used 

to measure development as no new leaves are produced following 

inflorescence initiation. On young plants, shoots emerging in 

the first 3 months following planting produced about 7 leaves 

before initiating an inflorescence (Fig. 7). Leaf count declined to 

about 6 leaves on shoots that emerged in December 1999, 

jumped to 8 for shoots emerging in January 2000, and declined

THE PAGE BULLETIN 12 / JANUARY 2005 THE BULLETIN / AUGUST PAGE 2005 11 

Figure 7. Mean number of leaves subtending the inflorescence for H. × 

rauliniana shoots emerging from July 1999 through August 2000. 

to 4 for August. 2000 shoots (Fig.7). Concurrent with this pattern 

of leaf number subtending the inflorescence, days to flower 

(Fig. 4) showed a marked difference with season of shoot emergence. 

The longest periods for SEH were for shoots emerging 

in January and February 2000 while the shortest periods were for 

shoots that emerged in the September to December 1999 period 

with a similar pattern for the late summer 2000 shoots. 

Discussion 

H. × rauliniana has desirable qualities for commercial 

cut flower production: with good red and yellow bract color, 

large inflorescences (inflorescence to about 50 cm length by up 

to 35 cm diameter with an interesting twisted structure (but this 

also makes it difficult to pack), long stems (2 to 3 M stems not 

uncommon), and keeping qualities that range from 10 to 20 

days, depending of stage of development at harvest. However, 

its seasonal blooming may be considered a disadvantage. 

In H. chartacea, H. stricta ‘Dwarf Jamaican’, and H. 

angusta, an inflorescence was usually initiated by the time 4 

leaves had unfurled (Criley and Lekawatana, 1995) and this required 

slightly more than one-half of the SEH development 

period. This suggested that prior to a certain leaf count, inflorescence 

initiation would not occur. Once the pseudostem has 

achieved the threshold leaf count, initiation can occur in response 

to a stimulus such as photoperiod as has been shown for 

several other heliconia species (Criley et al., 1999). Based on a 

theoretical half-time for leaf production and half-time for inflorescence 

development, leaf initiation is completed every 20 to 30 

days in H. × rauliniana, with the remaining development time 

used for inflorescence initiation and development. 

Occasionally a lamina developed on the lowest bract of 

an inflorescence. This suggested that there was a transition period 

during the time that the floral signal was being translated, 

and a leaf was converted into a bract, sterile but with typical 

bract color terminated by a green leafy structure. Of inflorescences 

that had bract leaves (14.3%) on pseudostems that emerged 

in October-November 1999, an average of 241.6 days with 6 

leaves was required to develop to harvest stage. Pseudostems 

that emerged in January – February 2000 needed 424 days and 

more leaves (7.4) to develop to harvest, while the March through 

June shoots took 353 days and produced 5.3 leaves on average, 

with a number producing bract leaves (24.3%). If half the development 

period was spent producing leaves, the leaf that became 

the bract leaf was in transition when it was exposed to the short 

days of October to mid-March, and the initiation signal was received. 

Shoots that emerged in early December still received 

enough short days after the last leaf was produced to develop 

an inflorescence, but January shoots did not have enough 

leaves to respond to the short day stimulus in spring and produced 

more leaves (average = 8) before perceiving the short 

days of fall and required the longest time period to develop 

(426 days). Leaf number subtending the inflorescence declined 

over the subsequent months, reflecting fewer days until the 

short day stimulus was received. 

What is not easily explained is the difference between 

the 20 day plastochron interval for shoots in 1999 and 30 days 

in 2000 if the time to full leaf production is one-half of the SE 

H time. Given the more frequent harvest of inflorescences in 

2000 and 2001, the SE H interval should give a shorter interval 

for full leaf development. 

Seasonality of flowering was evident for H. × 

rauliniana, and the data support its inclusion among the short 

day-responsive heliconias. Failure to flower as a result of the 

death of the shoot apex may account for the lower productivity 

of this heliconia selection, but dissection and examination of 

the shoot apex has not been performed. 

Literature Cited 

Berry, F. and W. J. Kress. 1991. Heliconias: an identification 

guide. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC. 

334 p. 

Criley, R. A. and S. Lekawatana. 1995. Seasonality of flowering 

in Heliconia chartacea and the potential for its 

control. Bull. Heliconia Soc. Intern. 7(4):11-15. 

Criley, R. A., W. S. Sakai, S. Lekawatana, and E. Kwon. 1999. 

Photoperiodism in the genus Heliconia and its effect 

upon seasonal flowering. Acta Hortic. 486:323-327. 

Central Thailand Ginger Food 

Patita Pakdeeviset , Nong Nooch Tropical Botanical Garden, 

Sattahip,Chonburi 20250, Thailand 

In central Thailand, food will mostly be cooked for a 

little bit sweeter taste than in other parts of the country. The 

sweetness was originally derived from the sap of palm Borassus 

flabellifera and coconut milk. In this issue I would like to 

select another popular dish that is easy to cook. 

Tom Kha Kai 

Ingredients : 

1. chicken meat 300 grams 

2. thin slices of young Galanga ginger ½ cup 

3. lemon grass stem, cut into slicess 1 stem 

4. Kaffir lime leaves, torn into pieces 5 leaves


5. chilies 5 pods 

6. shallots, crushed 5 bulbs 

7. coconut cream** 1 cup 

8. coconut milk 1½ cups 

9. salt 1 tbsp. 

10. lime juice 3 tbsp. 

11. fish sauce 2 tbsp. 

12. palm sugar ½ tbsp. 

**Note: - coconut cream refers to the layer that forms on the top 

of the coconut milk. 

Preparation : 

1. Wash the chicken and cut into thin slices. 

2. Boil the coconut milk with lemon grass, shallot, Kaffir lime 

leaves, and slices of young Galanga (Alpinia galanga). 

3. Add the chicken, salt and sugar, simmer slowly over low 

heat. Add more coconut cream into the soup, stir gently. 

4. Add fish sauce, lime juice, and slices of red chilies on top and 

serve hot. 

Ginger Carving 

The Thai art of vegetable carving has been a valuable 

heritage passed on to Thai women for many generations until 

now. A great effort to revive and maintain this art has recently 

actively been put into action. 

Pickled ginger in three flavors 

Ingredients : 

1. Carved pieces of ginger 

2. Vinegar 1 cup 

3. Sugar ¼ cup 

4. Salt 1tsp 

5. Water ½ cup 

Instructions: 

1. Leave all carved gingers in vinegar for an hour. Then wash. 

leave to dry on a thin white cloth. 

2. Mix the vinegar, sugar, salt, and water in a pot. 

3. Boil the solution until sugar and salt dissolve, filter through 

the thin white cloth, Leave until cool. 

4. Thoroughly wash the container by steaming or sterilizing for 5 

minutes. Then leave it dry. 

5. With tweezers, put all gingers onto the prepared container. 

Pour down the solution in and seal the container. 

Preservation : 

1. To ensure the quality of the pickled gingers, leave them in 

vinegar before being pickled. 

2. The solution should not be made too sweet or too concentrated 

or else the gingers will turn wilted. 

3. Keep it away from the sunlight to maintain its color. 

4. It takes 3 days before the gingers are ready to be eaten. 

This dish should be served with Roast duck or fried 

chicken or other oily food. 

Enjoy your cooking. 

Tools: 1. One fruit carving knife 

2. One pairing knife 

3. As much young gingers as you desire 

Instructions for carving a single layer petal flower : 

1. Choose some ginger (Zingiber officinalis) rhizomes that has 

the potential form to fit your flower shape. 

2. Peel all skin off and wash them clean 

3. Divide the ginger (single bunch of rizomes can be carved into 

2 bunches of flowers). Scrape it into forms of flowers, 

leaves and stems. 

4. To carve the flowers, scrape the ginger into a round form, 

Start with the center, then carve the inside of the flower 

from the inside, divide the ginger into 5 petals. Carve 

round tips of all petals. Scrape off some more flesh to 

create the delicate petals. Following the same instructions, 

carve all flowers. 

5. To carve the leaves, follow marked lines then finishing, leave 

it in chilled water. 

A Few Weeks in Panama: 

from H. barryana to H. tacarcuna. 

Carla Black, Volcan, Chiriqui, Rep. de Panama, Email; 

arcb@volcanbaru.com 

We were getting pretty wet, but Anders Lindstrom had 

come all the way from Thailand and we weren’t going to give up 

just because of a dry season drizzle soaking us to the bone. He 

was hot on the trail of a Zamia, and I wanted to see H. barryana 

for the first time. We were making a windshield survey of the 

Fortuna Dam area in western Panama, one of my favorite spots. 

It was going pretty well, except for the rain. Anders had arrived 

the day before, and a huge storm on the Atlantic coast was just 

subsiding, leaving low-lying towns flooded and the mountains of 

the continental divide enveloped in cloud and rain, and whipped 

by a surprisingly chilly wind. 

For over 10 years Anders has collected plants in all the 

humid tropics of the world, but I’m new at it. This wet day felt 

like my initiation into the real world of plant exploration. Getting 

back into the car after yet another foray into the dripping 

woods, I meekly said, “I sure am wet.” Anders turned his head 

just slightly and looked at me through the edge of his rainspeckled 

and fogged glasses, “I’ve never been so wet in my life. 

But I thought that if this is how you do it in Panama, I’d just go 

along.” Whew! That cleared the air, and we enjoyed unleashing 

a torrent of complaints! But it didn’t keep us from getting out yet 

again and spending an hour and a half on the trail getting wetter 

than wet, and finally finding what we had gone for: Zamia chigua 

and Heliconia barryana. Maybe–I have to do some homework 

before I can say for sure it wasn’t an odd H. irrasa or H. 

tortuosa. 

Anders came prepared with his laptop stuffed with photographs 

of herbarium records of the heliconias we hoped to see


in the coming weeks. He brought me copies of Kress’s 1981, 

1982, and 1986 papers describing 15 heliconias in Panama. With 

that, he opened a door to a new world: there was a better way to 

identify heliconias than comparing a plant in the wild to the 

photo in the Berry and Kress bible, Heliconia. 

The first result of Anders’s preparedness was to put the 

correct name on H. ramonensis var. lanuginosa; I called it H. 

regalis, and some photos could still fool me. But photos don’t 

tell the whole story! The documentation shows this variation of 

H. ramonensis in the area, but not H. regalis. Soon after, we 

found H. trichocarpa right in the middle of a shallow stream and 

spent as much time as we could bear getting wetter and taking 

photos and measuring a leaf or two. 

But “Twister” was something new for Anders, and he 

forgot about the weather for the fifteen minutes it took to make a 

quick location record and to snag a rhizome. It is probably a hybrid, 

if the strange twisted rachis is an indication. The other clue 

is its range of colors: the leaves go from all green to a deep purple 

underneath, and the rachis can be all red, or yellow with a 

fine line of red spiraling down the pendent inflorescence, with 

many intermediate gradations. The bracts are velvety red. 

The day before, we had made a short outing from my 

house to see H. lankesteri and H. nutans. Both had nice new inflorescences, 

and both shone beautifully under a glistening layer 

of rain. In just a couple of hours of looking from the car, we 

were good and wet. 

Following our record-breaking wet day in Fortuna, we 

faced yet another day of rainy heliconia hunting on the continental 

divide in dry season. This time my husband, Angel Rodriguez, 

had joined us and we were farther east, in the hills above 

Santa Fe, in Veraguas. We had only 5 hours before nightfall, and 

our car wouldn’t go another inch through the slippery mud. We 

maneuvered the car out of the middle of the road before abandoning 

it and walking, taking a longer and muddier hike than 

we’d anticipated. Fortunately for us, a pickup slithered by. It was 

getting through the worst of the mud with the help of the passengers 

who pushed when necessary; they were happy to have us 

along if we’d do our share of the pushing! The walk just got 

shorter, and we’d have more time on the trail. 

One of the heliconias we went to see got its correct 

name back: previously I thought it looked like a H. ramonensis, 

but it turns out to be H. pogonantha var. veraguasensis, according 

to Anders’s wealth of information. I didn’t even know of it 

before. We put the name H. faunorum on a mystery plant I’d 

seen on previous trips and had also mislabeled for lack of information. 

Anders enjoyed seeing 2-meter-tall H. thomasiana. At 

Nong Nooch his healthy specimens are only half that high. We 

got back to the car at nightfall, wet and muddy. Good thing this 

wasn’t rainy season! But with a beer to sleep on, and coffee to 

wake up with, we were ready for more. 

Working our way east towards Panama City, we made a 

brief stop at Cerro Campana National Park, just an hour from the 

big city. Cerro Campana is a rocky peak on the Pacific slope, far 

from the continental divide. Finally, no rain! I’d never gone to 

the park; I didn’t know I had a reason to, since there are few 

heliconias on the seasonally dry side of the country. But wellprepared 

Anders showed us the evidence that Cerro Campana is 

the only known natural habitat of H. magnifica. It wasn’t in 

bloom, but there was no doubt about it: the four plants we saw 

were magnificent. One small slope of the dry hill somehow 

maintains a bit more moisture than the surrounding grasslands, 

and we saw H. magnifica, H. thomasiana (the short one!), H. 

lindsayana, H. irrasa, and H. latispatha. With the help of the 

rangers, we hope to find more H. magnifica individuals next 

time we go – it’s frightening to think there might only be four. 

In Panama City we picked up Dario Luque who works 

in the main office of ANAM, the ministry of the environment. 

Anders had met him previously in relation to Zamia, so we invited 

him to come along. He really knew his trees and was a 

good traveling companion. Having a downtown official with you 

is also an advantage when you go out to far-flung parks! We 

were treated like honored guests at all of the ANAM facilities 

we visited. 

Before dawn, and after less than 12 hours in the City, 

we were on our way east towards the Darien on the Interamerican 

Highway. Over 100 kilometers of new pavement have been 

slapped down in the last 3 years, so the first part is a breeze. The 

asphalt runs out some 20 km before reaching Meteti, a big agricultural 

town dedicated to serving the local ranchers and rice 

growers. We were in Darien province, but the forest is nowhere 

to be seen. And with the newly paved road, the forest is undoubtedly 

retreating even further. 

For another 20 km. past Meteti the Interamerican Highway 

continues as a good gravel road with only a few holes to 

watch out for. Then the infamous part begins. No road base. No 

gravel. No graders. Thankfully, dry season was well under way 

in this region and the mud road had hardened into a solid, rutted, 

red strip. By 4:00pm we were at the bitter end of the Interamerican 

Highway. Yaviza occupies a large point of high land at the 

confluence of two rivers, and travelers continue by boat. An 

ocean of H. marginata occupies the swamp on the back side of 

town. Sr. Pichi, the local representative of ANAM, received us 

with open arms by inviting us buy a few rounds of beer from his 

cantina. He joined us, cheerfully including himself in the rounds, 

and explained that to get to the Parque Nacional Darien you hire 

a boat to take you downriver the half hour to El Real, and from 

there you walk. For the price of gasoline for the round trip, he 

could provide the boat first thing in the morning. 

We slept in the new but dusty ANAM guest quarters, 

thanks to our influential companion. The next morning we 

climbed aboard the only fiberglass boat we’d seen amongst the 

huge colorful dug-outs, and were off to El Real and the park office. 

Both Yaviza and El Real are towns with very few cars, but 

the streets are paved with concrete, well above what must be a 

swamp most of the year. The houses are attractive two storey 

bungalows, often on stilts, which lack only a new coat of paint to 

make them look positively charming. 

By noon we had shown our permits and credentials, had 

bought our provisions at the local kiosko, were supplied with 

two park employees as trail companions and cooks, and were on 

our way. The hike to the park and Pirre Station was either three 

or five hours, depending on whom you asked. With a horse to 

carry food and the bulky sleeping gear, our packs weighed no 

more than 25 or 30 pounds. We got two blocks from the office 

and were halted at a border police checkpoint. Half an hour later 

our names and numbers were duly registered and we were really 

on our way. 

Heliconia metallica, some with wine-red bracts, and H. 

curtispatha greeted us on the edge of town. H. latispatha was 

not long in appearing and a H. wagneriana or two graced the 

route. But this was not wilderness. Townspeople of Pirre #1 and 

Pirre #2 tended cattle and planted sustenance crops along the 

route. The patches of forest were well picked-over and muddy, 

thanks to their large animals. We were hiking alright, but only


because there weren’t any cars in the region to merit a road. 

Before long we got another rest, thanks to another border 

police checkpoint. These soldiers work one month in this 

god-forsaken outback, which we make so much effort to get to, 

then get a month off at home, usually in Panama City. They 

aren’t thrilled to be sitting under a palm thatch roof doing very 

little but painstakingly writing down the pertinent information of 

the few passersby. We exchanged pleasantries as they took our 

particulars and were on our way in twenty minutes. 

Finally, some two hours after leaving town, we entered 

our first real patch of forest. The temperature dropped a couple 

of degrees, and the cooling humidity went up a percentage point 

or two. We took off our sunglasses and gasped at the huge orange 

Brownea pompom clinging to a tree trunk at eye level. We 

were in the jungle, alright! 

Not much farther along we came to an opening in the 

dark woods where H. wagneriana had taken control of the landscape. 

You might say ho-hum, as I would have under normal 

circumstances, but the huge, bright flowers filled our view in 

every direction. Even common old H. wagneriana was stunning 

in this enormous flower arrangement. 

We didn’t see any signs of the herds of slithering 

snakes we’d be warned about during the previous month, when 

we mentioned our plans to town-dwellers in the opposite end of 

the country. The Darien holds a sort of mystery for most Panamanians. 

Very few people have ever visited, but everyone has a 

story. One tells of a plane crash in which a whole load of especially 

venomous snakes were released somewhere in the Darien; 

now they have multiplied and dominate the province. I don’t believe 

this neo-creationist theory of snake abundance. I do believe 

the vague stories of generalized danger due to violent activities 

close to the Colombian border. We put our safety into the hands 

and the good judgment of our national park guides, all local residents. 

We were not disappointed. 

My feet could use the rest by the time we got to the last 

habitation before entering the park. The lady of the house was 

making an increasingly good living by selling chickens, bananas, 

and plantains to the ever-increasing trickle of tourists on their 

way to the wilderness. At a dollar a pound, live and kicking, we 

had two of the fattest chickens in the yard. And I can tell you 

they tasted mighty good cooked over a wood fire at the end of a 

long day! 

The guy who said five hours was right. An hour before 

dark we straggled into camp. Pirre Station looked like paradise. 

The visiting horses keep the lawn trimmed right up to the dense 

wall of primary forest. A bright stream runs along one side of the 

station which consists of a big bunkhouse with a community 

room, a mostly unused screened mess hall for about 12 people, 

and an open air lean-to sheltering the two cook fires which are 

conveniently situated on an elevated platform. 

The stream beckoned and I took off my rubber boots, 

hoping for the best. But I had three big blisters on the bottoms of 

my feet. I wasn’t staying in camp the next day, no matter what. 

So the next morning I drained the blisters, put on two pairs of 

socks, and walked very gently for the next eight hours. It was 

worth it. 

Cerro Pirre and this part of the national park is dry forest. 

We were about a month into dry season, so the trails were 

dry, but the forest wasn’t parched yet. On the rocky edge of the 

stream in camp we found H. imbricata, and not too far along the 

trail we came across a heliconia which still generates discussion. 

Is it H. longiflora or H. tacarcuna? On the first sighting I called 

out “longiflora”, and Anders went along with my summary assessment, 

until we were back in the City that is. After really 

looking over the information in his laptop, he insists we missed 

the chance of a lifetime to collect H. tacarcuna, “Look at the 

pictures! Just look at the color of the tips of the flowers!” Until 

I do my homework I’m still thinking we missed yet another H. 

longiflora. 

Twelve hours of daylight aren’t a lot, and by the time 

we were reaching a really interesting elevation for heliconias, it 

was time to head back to camp. We knew we were getting up 

there when we found the biggest H. pogonanatha I’ve ever 

seen, with an inflorescence 2.25 meters long including the peduncle, 

and really gorgeous young flowers of H. trichocarpa 

dangling on long peduncles. But on the way down we still had 

to take a good look at H. longa and Anders had a patch of 

Zamia to examine, so we left the higher elevations for next 

time. 

This part of the Darien is not as dangerous as other 

flatter, more populated areas. Guerrillas, paramilitaries, and 

bandits don’t make things harder on themselves than they have 

to, and they stick to the low-land passage between Panama and 

Colombia. When we passed the thatched border patrol checkpoint 

on the way out of the forest, the shift had changed, and 

the new guys didn’t have a record of us on the wrinkled scraps 

of paper left behind by the departing troops. They weren’t 

happy about seeing us arrive from “inside” and they didn’t 

want to let us go without having all the proper entry information, 

but since they didn’t come up with the right tidbits of paper, 

and we didn’t look like any of the afore-mentioned bad 

guys, they finally had to give up. By the end of the following 

day we were back in the big city. It was a long trip to have only 

one day in the forest, but now we know and will make our next 

trip a little more efficient. 

Thankfully, the Darien portion of the trip was dry, as 

you would expect in dry season. But one more wet adventure 

awaited us. We took advantage of Anders’s few remaining 

days and headed out to El Valle de Anton, a well-known and 

well-studied area west of the capital city. It is at El Valle that 

the continental divide comes closest to the Pacific coast of Panama. 

In an hour’s drive from the Interamerican Highway you 

can be on the Atlantic slope. And with the stormy weather still 

not cleared up, that meant the wet slope. 

But we had a mission: I had never seen H. necrobracteata 

and I was interested to see H. lennartiana in the wild. Anders 

wanted a close look at H. ramonensis var. xanthotricha. 

(Thanks to him, I could put the correct name on this ramonensis 

I have had in my yard for years!) We were successful on all 

three counts, though H. lennartiana’s plight is quite unfortunate. 

El Valle is known for its Sunday plant and arts market, 

where people bring all kinds of cultivated and wild plants 

to sell. In the hills above town we walked 20 minutes with our 

host, Ultiminio Gil, to see the one orange H. lennartiana he 

knew of on his large property. All we found were chopped 

leaves and hole in the ground. It had been stolen within the last 

few days. In another location he showed us a reddish form 

which had survived the poachers. Heliconia lennartiana, in the 

beautiful and widely-cultivated orange form, is the first heliconia 

I will witness to go extinct in the wild. If a few individuals 

still survive, it is only because they’re growing in very difficult 

spots to reach, and even that will not guarantee their safety for 

long.


On the bright side, H. necrobracteata is quite common 

on Sr. Gil’s property. It has survived because of its huge size 

and strange ugliness! The poor thing doesn’t even get one bract 

open before all the lips begin to go necrotic. By the time the 

graceful inflorescence is completely open, only about a quarter 

of each red bract is saved from the creeping black and brown 

rot. 

The other interesting heliconia in the area is a pretty 

understory plant which I’ve never seen anywhere else. It seems 

to be a hybrid between H. lindsayana and H. latispatha. It 

looks a bit like photos of H. sarapiquensis. But photographs 

aren’t what I need to pin down an ID. What I need are herbarium 

records and original descriptions. Thanks to Anders’s few 

weeks in Panama, I know how to do my homework, and one 

day I’ll let you know what we’ve got here! 

Our adventure, long and varied, drew to an end. Each 

of us content with our success, we were happy to be going 

home to nurture our samples of the treasures we had seen, photographed, 

measured, and documented. But one of the treasures 

was not as tangible: the memory and enticement of the Darien. 

We will be going back; next time with our experience to guide 

usto the elusive Darien-dwelling heliconias. Maybe! 

Registration of H. ‘Crocodile’ and H. 

‘Johnson Beharry V.C.’ 

Bryan R. Brunner, International Registrar for Heliconia, Agricultural 

Experiment Station, HC-01 Box 11656, Lajas, Puerto 

Rico 00667 (brbrunner@yahoo.com) 

The Heliconia Society International was officially recognized 

as the International Cultivar Registration Authority 

(ICRA) for Heliconia on 1 August 2003. An ICRA’s purpose is 

to promote stability in cultivar nomenclature through the registration 

of cultivar names and to record and publish authoritative 

checklists and registers of all known cultivar names. Instructions 

and forms for submitting a new heliconia cultivar to the 

Heliconia ICRA are found on-line at http://www. 

heliconiasocietypr.org/cultivar_registration.htm, or may be obtained 

by contacting the registrar at the above address or email. 

Registered cultivar names will be established by publication in 

the HSI Bulletin, and will be included in the International Heli- 

conia Cultivar Checklist and Register (1st edition to be published 

in the next HSI Bulletin.) Cultivar names which are accepted 

by the ICRA and established by publication may not be 

reused for the denomination class Heliconia. 

‘Crocodile’ (H. curtispatha × H. mariae) Registered 

11 April 2005. Registrant: C. Black, 

Apdo. 0424-00334, Volcan, Chiriqui, 

Rep. de Panama. Nominant: C. Black 

and A. Rodríguez (2004). Description: 

Pendent inflorescence; 49 slightly spiral 

bracts, red with black lip, 5.5 cm 

wide, 7 cm long; rachis red; sepals yellow. 

Vegetation musoid; leaf blade 61 

cm wide, 230 cm long; white waxy 

coating and maroon midrib on lower 

leaf surface; leaf blades lacerating into 

lateral segments. Height 6.5 m. Notes: 

Wild collected near Escobal, Colon 

Province, Panama. 

‘Johnson Beharry V.C.’ (H. psittacorum × H. 

spathocircinata) Registered 8 May 2005. Registrant: J. Criswick, 

St. Rose Nursery, P.O. Box 21, St. Georges, Grenada, 

West Indies. Originator/Nominant: Denis Noel, Balthazar 

Farm, Carlton, St. Andrew, Grenada, West Indies. Description: 

Erect inflorescence; 8 to 9 distichous 

bracts, uniform deep crimson in mature 

bracts, shading to vermillionorange 

on proximal cheek of unopened 

bracts, 2.5 cm wide, 10 cm 

long, basal bract green on distal 2/3 

of keel; rachis deep crimson; sepals 

yellow, dark green to black on distal 

third with light tip; ovary yellow; 

pedicel pale green. Vegetation musoid; 

leaf blade 15 to 16.5 cm wide, 

60 to 68 cm long; leaf with fine red 

margin. Height 1.3 to 1.9 m. Notes: 

Sport of H. ‘Alan Carle’ occurring at Balthazar Farm. Named 

in honor of Private Johnson Beharry of Princess of Wales 

Royal Regiment, Great Britain, who was awarded the Victory 

Cross on April 27, 2005, for outstanding bravery under enemy 

fire in Iraq, 2004. 

HSI Headquarters 

c/o Fairchild Tropical Gardens 

10901 Old Cutler Road 

Miami, FL 331556-4296 USA

Some Cold Hardy Heliconias For Southern California

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