Monday, 15 September 2008

HELICONIA

Heliconia! The name sounds so beautiful, like a Greek goddess's.







And the flower looks divine. I found these growing in friend Gita’s garden (yes gardening is another of her talents) where she grows them among other plants.

The bud is tight and flat and looks like a cardboard cutout painted in gay colours. As it unfurls petal by petal, it opens in all its glory swinging like a streamer.

It is called the poor man’s bird of paradise, an exotic family of flowers named after the equally exotic birds they resemble – but this one was rich enough for me.

19 comments:

Swarna said...

Lovely pics of beautiful colours, Raji.

Webradio said...

Bonjour Raji !

Jolies photos, pleines de couleurs...

Je ne connaissais pas cette fleur !

Hello Raji !

Prettys pictures, with beautiful colours...

I don't know thie flower !

Karthik Narayan said...

nice work with the kodak i shud say...

BTW o change my blog link from quizakn to bloggerkn...

Indrani said...

Beautiful flower shots, cheers me up for the day!

Subs said...

awesome auntie..looks great and decorative..

SandraRee said...

The flowers are beautiful, Raji! It's good to know you can grow those in pots and they will still look so stunning! And I like the name Heliconia too, very exotic. :D

Lakshmi Bharadwaj said...

i remember once, when i was very small, a photographer had used these flowers in the backgournd for that extra effect, and now i can see why! They are lovely.

Gurooji said...

Ah, that's what it's called... they are so pretty.
We have some at home too, and nearly every visitor asks us about them.

Resmi... said...

This plant was once there in my father's house. But no more there now. My favourite activity was to forcibly pull out the petals from the bud... Quite destructive.. ;-)

fitnessfreak said...

raji mam.....this is awesome....amma loves these flowers too and incidentally she is a leo too and her bday is 2 days after yours....16th aug!!
shows how much leo's have in common!

Kat said...

Loved the blend of colours. The flowers are very pretty. Tks for sharing.

p.s. below the 'trip' blog, it's written "They came... from December 6, 2008" from dec 2008?

AJEYA RAO said...

In kannada (Mangalore) we call it -Draupadi Jade which translates as Draupadi's hair plait.

kallu said...

You're a wonderful photgrapher Raji as well as... Heliconia does sound so exotic. Aren't these flowers now used to decorate so many marriage halls?

Maddy said...

the colors are as good as the ones we saw last week at singapore's orchid park....great pics!

RAJI MUTHUKRISHNAN said...

I am so glad everyone shares my admiration of these colourful flowers. Thank you all - Swarna, Webradio, Karthik, Indrani,Subs, Lakshmi, Gurooji,Resmi, Fitnessfreak, Kat, Kallu.

Maddy, that is where I first them, too, in Singapore.

I made a mistake, though, Sandra - they are not grown in pots in Gita's garden, though they can be, I am told.

Ajeya , that is a lovely name - I shall remember it.

RAJI MUTHUKRISHNAN said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
RAJI MUTHUKRISHNAN said...

Kat, thanks for spotting the error and pointing it out. I have corrected it. :)

Sunita Mohan said...

Good post, Raji. This particular heliconia goes by the name Heliconia rostrata. They look great in tall flower arrangements when you really want to grab eyeballs.
If you're trying to grow this in a pot you'll need a really humongous one! Not only is the plant about 5 feet (or more) tall, it has a habit of 'travelling' ie., putting out rhizomes all around it so that a measly one-plant-per -pot soon becomes 20 plants in a pot!

RAJI MUTHUKRISHNAN said...

Sunita, thanks for the full name - I did see quite a few varieties in Singapore, and was happy to see these here. I was also told tht they belong to the cann a family.