Thursday, November 20, 2008

Zingiberaceae in Laos (?)

This is another plant spotted on the sidewalk in Vientiane, Laos.


I can only guess at what it is – the reddish bamboo-like stalks reminded me of the Zingiberaceae (ginger) family, which is surprisingly large as I am finding out recently – there are more than 1300 species, and even turmeric is part of the ginger family (which I should have guessed, having seen fresh turmeric root on sale in the pasar malam (night market)).

This one attracted me because of the unusual dangling flower stems, which incidentally rather look like crimped hair. Because of this feature, I think that it is of the Globbeae (or Globba) genus.


And the flower was a very delicate, paper tissue-like pale pink.


The photos don't really do them justice, they were very nice :)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow! That's a beautiful plant. I'm envious of what you get to see growing on the sidewalks in Malaysia!

TYRA Hallsénius Lindhe said...

Hi Julian. Very exotic looking flowers ever moor exciting than the orchid and beautiful. / Tyra
THE GREENHOUSE IN TYRA'S GARDEN

Anonymous said...

*Zach* - actually this one was in Laos, though we do get many plants in Malaysia too. Things grow pretty easily here and almost every house will have some plants outdoors, though more likely to be in pots rather than plots.

*Tyra* - Yes I found them very unusual too. Nice chilis you have there! I find them difficult to grow...

Eric Bronson said...

That's truly unusual I haven't seen that before!

Anonymous said...

hehe I kind of hoped you might know what it was! I also found it very unusual, up close the petals are really like tissue paper or something.

Wicked Gardener said...

My kinda plant - hope you find out the name.

Anonymous said...

Dear all,

The plant is Thalia geniculata from Marantaceae family. It is a water plants and people called them water canna.

Cheers

Anonymous said...

Hey thanks :) Much appreciated!