Red And Pink Ginger
Red Ginger is a popular ornamental perennial plant seen positively everywhere in Hawaii. It was introduced to the Islands sometime before 1930 and is native to New Caledonia, British Solomon Island Protectorate as well as various other locations. It and the pink ginger are popular as an ornamental and cut flower. Its Hawaiian name is 'Awapuhi 'ula 'ula .
This dark pink ginger bract has the buds of its true white flowers. Many mistake the various colored ginger bracts to be the real flower. Below is a beautiful variegated variety known as "Polynesian Princess" which I photographed at a vendors display; I have not yet seen them growing as a landscape plant here to photograph them outside.
There is also a pale pink variety shown below at a small city park at Nuuanu Stream in Honolulu.
The above photo will be a great reference for me to paint from one of these days.
Blue Ginger
Blue ginger is not really a ginger at all but belongs to the Spiderwort family and is native to Brazil. It is used in the Hawaiian islands as an ornamental garden plant and is a perennial as I believe is true of all the various ginger plants found here. It grows to about 6 feet tall. I love the sapphire blue to blue-purple color of this plant and in a weird way it reminds me of Texas bluebonnets.
Shell Ginger
Shell ginger is named so because its long flower panicles resemble mussels with pink and white shells. It is quite lovely when fresh, but as the flowers fade they turn an ugly brown.
There are other ginger flowers to write about, but I will save that for another post real soon.
