Tropical Plant Database - Plant Details

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. Heliconia are actually highly modified leaves and bracts, their colorful bracts.
Heliconia pendula has pendulous bracts, dull red with white sepals.

Although these large tropical flowers are natives to only Central and South America-the Amazon rainforest- and some islands of the South Pacific, their easy cultivation and spectacular presence have made them favorite garden subjects throughout the world.
(Kepler, A. K. 1999. Exotic Tropicals of Hawaii.)

In the American Tropics, hummingbirds are the exclusive polinators of red, yellow , pink and orange heliconias while nectar feeding bats are the polinators of green heliconias.
(Kepler, A. K. 1999. Exotic Tropicals of Hawaii.)

(Information for this species compiled and recorded by Camelia Cirnaru, NTBG Consultant.)

Heliconias are remarkable plants, not only for the beauty of their flowers, but also for the fact that they are so mysterious---so little is known about them, their cultivation and care.
Most species of heliconias can be found in moist or wet regions, but some are found in seasonally dry areas. Although Heliconias flourish in the humid lowland tropics at elevations below 1500 feet, surprisingly, the greatest number of species are found in middle elevation rain and cloud forest habitats. The most remarkable members of the genus inhabit open sites in secondary growth along roads, riverbanks and in patches of light in the forest.
(Kepler, A. K. 1999. Exotic Tropicals of Hawaii.)

We currently have 2 herbarium specimens for Heliconia pendula in our collection. Click on any specimen below to view the herbarium sheet data.

• 021101 - collected by David H. Lorence in 1995
• 021102 - collected by David H. Lorence in 1995