About Heliconia aurantiaca Verschaff.
Heliconia aurantiaca is a herbaceous plant that grows from rhizomes, reaching up to 1.5 meters (around 5 feet) in height. Its large, glossy leaves resemble the leaves of banana and ginger plants. Leaf blades grow up to 35 centimeters long and 7 centimeters wide (around 14 by 3 inches), are lobed or "eared" at the base, and have no petioles or only very short ones. Inflorescences are held erect on top of peduncles. Both the rachises and the scoop-shaped bracts that grow beneath individual flowers are red to orange. The flowers have a distinctive structure that evolved to suit both hummingbird pollinators and insect herbivores; flowers develop upside-down and at right angles to their bracts. The perianths are curved, and are green to yellow; the ovaries are also green to yellow. Mature fruits are blue, hairless drupes. This species naturally occurs from southern Mexico southward into Costa Rica. In Nicaragua, it is recorded as relatively common in the very humid forest understories on the Atlantic side, growing at elevations between 150 and 1200 meters (around 500 to 4000 feet). One specimen collection from Belize was taken from the shaded understory of a seasonally dry rainforest growing on limestone.
