One of my heliconias that I grow in my garden surprised me some months back with the formation of numerous fruits. Almost all the ovaries on the inflorescence were swelling up! I have seen the formation of fruits in our locally grown heliconias but the number of fruits was never that numerous. The plant was probably a Heliconia pseudoaemygdiana.
Until today, the majority of the ovaries that were first seen on the inflorescence still persisted. From my memory, at least three months have already passed. Heliconia ovaries will only swell up upon successful pollination. The natural pollinators of heliconia flowers are humming birds that can be found in the plant’s native habitat in Central and South America but these cannot be found in Singapore! How the flowers of my plant got pollinated is a big mystery to me. It could be ants though!
Recently, some of the fruits have started to turn blue. Heliconia fruits turn blue when they are ripe. I did not really bothered to take a closer look at them because I thought the fruits would not yield viable seeds since we do not have hummingbirds in Singapore to pollinate the flowers. Most of the time, the fruits, even when they have turned blue, when prised open, do not reveal a well-formed seed.
I was requested by my friend Chong Ren who is also a heliconia enthusiast to take some pictures of my fruiting heliconia using my digital camera. While I was trying to position my camera properly to take the first shot, I moved the gravid inflorescence and I saw a couple of brown things dropping off from it.
I picked them up using my fingers and between my fingers, I felt something that was very familiar. The brown particles felt hard and rough. I took a closer look at one of them and I was startled to see that they were actually mature seeds of the heliconia! I never expected this and I wonder if the seeds are viable. Nevertheless, I guess they are worth a try. I will be sowing them and wish me good luck that they germinate!
The above picture shows how the blue fruit skin and aril around the seeds of the heliconia actually comes off to reveal the pebble-like seeds beneath.
