A new feature that I am instituting on this weblog is “A plant or flower of the week”, which will appear every Friday. I have been very fortunate to see so many exotic and beautiful plants and flowers both in the wild and in private and botanical gardens during my numerous journeys to the tropics. As the owner of Calypso Island Chronicles (and Calypso Island Tours), I would like to share some these ‘flowers and plants” with fellow botanical and nature enthusiasts.

The first flower of the week is the Velvet Stepladder Plant (Costus malorteanus), a species of the ginger family, which is indigenous to Central America.I encountered this unusual plant while taking a leisurely hike through Welchman Hall Gully in Barbados a couple of years ago. The Gully is a one-mile long and home to a variety of tropical plant and trees, including nutmeg, bamboo, clove and palms and an assortment of flowering gingers. At the end of the trail, there’s small climb to a lookout point with spetacular views of the rugged Atlantic Coastline. Surveying the scene, my eyes locked onto an unusual colony of plants. Having never seen this plant before, I decided to step closer to get a better look. The flower of the plant was very exotic; in fact it looked more like the face of some kind of animal more than a flower. The plant that I was admiring was the Velvet Stepladder, otherwise known as Spiral Ginger.

I have to admit, that this was one of the most unusual looking plants that I have encountered in my travels.

nature
Barbados

This entry was posted on Friday, April 28th, 2006 at 8:50 am and is filed under Barbados, Commentary, nature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.