Reader Sue K. recently left a comment on my post about Panama’s Curcuma plant. It was enticing enough to follow up on, so here it is:
My Curcumas are light pink in color and have blueish small flowers that bloom from the cone area. The leaves come first and then the flowers. I would love to know what kind they may be if someone knows. I wish I could post a photo too. I love them and was very surprised to see them return the year after we planted them. We live in S. Florida and don’t have to take them out of the ground. I don’t know much about bulbs…but if we move to NC, I would like to take them with me and hope they will grow there too. Sue K.
I wrote back to Sue and offered to post her photos to see whether anyone else who reads this blog might identify them.
Her Curcuma is beautiful!
Click on any of these thumbnails to see a larger version. The first photo includes a bonus dragonfly. Sue noted that the flower in the vase was cut because they had a storm and the stem was bent. The little blue flower opened after she brought the flower inside.
I’m intrigued that the leaves of her Curcuma come up first, then the flowers. The flower stems do seem to come up directly from the ground, though, like our Curcuma here in Panama.
With a little searching on the internet, I think we’ve come up with the name of this Curcuma, but I’d like to ask your opinion. What do you think Sue’s Curcuma is? (If no one knows, I’ll post our guess next week.)
Update: We have one answer so far, posted as a comment to the original post on Curcuma. You can follow the link over there if you want to see it, or you can make your own guess without peeking by leaving a comment below!
Update 2 – The Answer: Sue’s Curcuma is probably Curcuma alismatifolia, as Carla guessed in the one and only attempt that anyone made to answer. It’s a probable, not a definitive ID, because of the number of cultivars and unnamed hybrids in this genus. The story is told well, with another lovely photo, at Botany Photo of a Day, where even the expert called his identification tentative.
The common name of this flower, if C. alismatifolia is indeed what it is, is Siam Tulip. Carla mentioned in an email message to me that a friend had sent her a photo of a whole field of these flowers in bloom, just like a field of tulips. One of the comments at the Botany Photo of a Day site mentioned that this open area habitat is unlike that preferred by many other gingers. I couldn’t say about that, but the mind boggles at the thought of a field of Siam Tulips!
