This is the first time that my Indonesian Wax Ginger plant flowered for me since I bought and planted it in my Ginger Garden last April. That was quite fast actually because I reckon I purchased quite an established plant to start with.
The clump has started to bloom some time back, at least a month ago, but I posted this little piece of good news now because I wanted to wait for the blooms to develop to a stage that is good for taking pictures.
Three of the four flower spikes, in various stages of development, are pictured here.
Botanically known as Tapeinochilus ananassae, the plant is native to this part of the world all the way until northern Australia. It belongs to the Spiral Ginger family, Costaceae.
My plant is slightly taller than me at about 2 m now and I love its decorative bamboo-like stems. As expected from a relative of the spiral ginger, the leaves of the Indonesian Wax Ginger are also arranged in a spiralling manner along the stem.
What is the most attractive feature about this plant is its terminal, extremely durable inflorescences that are shaped like a cone, which are used in some exotic flower arrangments. The cone rises out from the base of the plant out of the ground. It grows on a thick stem that can rise up to 2 to 3 feet above the ground before opening up to reveal the bright crimson waxy bracts where the brigh yellow waxy flowers emerge.
A flower spike just starting to open up…
Another flower spike with bracts that are more obvious now. One can see the yellow true flowers hiding between the bracts.
Ah… A beauty at last with a well-formed column of bracts arranged on a cone-like structure. It can grow taller still!
So far, all those pictures of the inflorescence were taken from the side. When viewed from the top, the inflorescence looked like a rose!
