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 :)

Ornamental grass - Sunrise in Vang Vieng, Laos

(hope this post goes up, the previous one doesn't appear on the blog for some reason...)

I got up for the sunrise this morning, and managed to catch this photo of some ornamental grass (at least that's what it would be called in a garden setting, I suppose) with the sunrise.

Hibiscus in Laos

Well, I think they are hibiscus. What struck me first about this tree was that there seemed to be flowers of different colours on the same plant - but now I think of it, it's probably two plants intertwined.


Anyway, I thought it looked very nice :)