Fri 5 Jun 2009
Crab & Lobster Claws
Posted by Jun Alday under Arrangements, Flowers, tropical plant
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Pendulous Crab Claw's used as border plants brighten a tropical garden.
Heliconia is named after Mount Helicon, the seat of the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts and sciences in Greek mythology. Like their god Apollo, the Muses supposedly remained young and beautiful forever like the long-lasting and elegant flowers of Heliconia. Lobster Claw and Crab’s Claw are additional common names for flowers in this genus.
Heliconia are grown for their beautiful, brilliant colorful flowering bracts. Breathtaking and unusual flowerheads (bracts) rise from clumps of banana like leaves, sometimes very large or slender. Their height may on some species vary from as small as 2′ to 25′ depending on variety. Heliconia are actually highly modified leaves and bracts, their colorful bracts may be erect, pendulous or spiraling with bracts in the shapes of bird’s beaks, lobster claws or fan shaped and colors of reds, pinks, golds, oranges and splashes of a mixture of colors.
Heliconia Rostrata or hanging Crab Claws simply arranged.
Heliconia Rostrata
English names: False bird of paradise, Hanging heliconia, Hanging lobster claw, Lobster claw. A musoid-type, perennial herb with rhizomatous underground stem, up to 3 m tall. Pseudostem greenish-red, c 2.5 cm in diameter. Leaves simple, petiolate, petioles up to 24 cm long, lamina 7-98 × 4-20 cm, oblong, acute, entire, midrib green, sometimes maroon beneath. Inflorescence one per shoot, 20-50 cm long, pedunculate, peduncle 15- 20 cm long, red, hairy, terminal, pendent, distichous, sometimes spiral, a raceme of many-flowered monochasial cymes (cincinni), cincinnal bracts bright red with yellowgreen tip and green margin, densely hairy. Flowering time: March-August.
Heliconia Bihai (Caribaea) or Lobster Claw matches the colors of the Thai painting
Heliconia Bihai
English names: Crab claw, Lobster claw, Macaw flower. This upward facing flower of the Heliconia family, which acts as a cup, is a natural source of rain water for birds and insects. A musoid-type, perennial herb with rhizomatous underground stem, c 3 m tall. Pseudostem greenish-brown, c 3.5 cm in diameter. Leaves simple, petiolate, petioles c 32cm long, lamina 50-60 × 20-22 cm, ovate-oblong, shortly acuminate, entire, midrib green on the upper surface and reddish-green on the lower surface. Inflorescence one per shoot, up to 45 cm long, pedunculate, peduncle c 15 cm long, greenish-white, terminal, erect, distichous, a raceme of many-flowered monochasial cymes (cincinni), cincinnal bracts bright rose-red with green tip, lip dark green distally with whitish line above. Flowering time: December-June.
The flowers of this species, Heliconia Caribaea, are actually highly modified leaves and bracts in the shapes of a lobster claws.
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