I grow two groups of Maraca or Shampoo Ginger (Zingiber zerumbet) (My gallery link). The ones on the west side of my house by the Higueron Tree usually start yellow and turn orange and at a different time of year than these in my “Jungle Garden” on the south side of my casita which usually stay yellow during their 3 months plus of blooming, with some hints of orange. But this year on a south side one has turned a deep red as shown in the feature photo above. I have been cutting the tall plants back to give more sun to ground plants and the more sun might be the reason, though I don’t know for sure. Tropical plants are just as interesting to watch and photograph as much of the wildlife that I usually focus on.
I first experienced this interesting tropical flower on a jungle trip to Mayan ruins in Guatemala in 2006 December – Guatemala where this plant grew right outside my jungle room at Chiminos Lodge. Tropical adventures always include tropical plants! 🙂
And two more photos showing the usual yellow and some orange ones . . .
¡Pura Vida!
Updated Blog Post on the Sloth
On the recent blog post I titled Three-toed Sloth I embarrassed myself by calling a 2-toed sloth a 3-toed, not only in the blog post but on iNaturalist where when someone corrected me I told them to count the toes in the photo! Welllll . . . it seems that my lack of knowledge was showing, as the 2-toed Sloth has 3 toes on his back feet! My face is red!