Indigenous to Southeast Asia, this spectacular looking member of the ginger family is cultivated throughout the Tropics. I have seen torch ginger (Phaeomeria Magnifica or Etlingera Elatior) in a botanical garden setting in three of my favorite destinations - Costa Rica, Thailand and Barbados. The cherry red or pink flower heads grow on leafless stalks that sometimes reach a height of 15 feet or more and in appearance, look like they could have made out of candle wax or porcelain. A white variety of torch ginger is found in southern Thailand. Other names are Porcelain Rose or Wax Ginger.

The red torch ginger was photographed in the Flower Forest in Barbados and the white variety was photographed at Queen Sirikit Botanical gardens in Thailand.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 16th, 2006 at 8:21 am and is filed under Barbados, nature, Thailand. 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.