Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Coarse herbs with leafy shoots 1–2 m tall (rarely taller), rhizomes ca. 3 cm in diameter, internally pale and fragrant.

Stems: Rhizomes creeping. pseudostems robust.

Roots: Fibrous root system.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate, distichous, oriented parallel to rhizome. Blades oblong–lanceolate to lanceolate, 25–60 cm long, 4–11 cm wide. Apex acuminate. Upper surfaces glabrous; lower surfaces pubescent or glabrate. Margins entire. Lateral veins parallel, diverging from prominent midrib. Sessile or subsessile; ligules 1.7–3 cm long, 2–lobed. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences erect, basically ellipsoid, 7–20 cm long, 4–8 cm wide, primary bracts green, oblong, imbricate, 3.5– 5.5 cm long, 2–3 cm wide, rachis permanently concealed, cincinni 3–6–flowered, bracteoles tubular, ⅔ as long as primary bracts. Flowers bisexual (perfect), fragrant, zygomorphic, pedicellate. Calyx 3-lobed, the lobes unequal, cylindrical, 2.5–4 cm long, glabrous. Corolla adnate with the stamens into a floral tube, distally 3-lobed; corolla lobes unequal, corolla white, the tube slender, 7–9 cm long, the lobes linear, 3–5 cm long. Stamens 5, in 2 whorls, only the posterior one of the inner whorl fertile, the other 2 members of inner whorl connate to form a highly variable, often conspicuous labellum; labellum showy, often centrally flushed with yellow or yellowish green, broadly obovate, abruptly clawed at base, as long as staminodes, 3.5–5.5 cm wide; stamen white, not exceeding labellum; lateral staminodes white, oblong-lanceolate, 3–5 cm long. Ovary inferior, with 2 variously developed apical nectary glands, 3-celled, sometimes incompletely so, rarely 1-celled, placentation axile, parietal (or essentially basal), or rarely free-central; ovules usually numerous; style filiform, often enveloped in a groove of the fertile stamen and embraced by the thecae; stigma various, often papillose and protruding beyond anther.

Fruit: Capsules oblong; ca. 3 cm long and 1.5 cm wide; the valves orange within. Seeds bright red; elongate; ca. 4 mm long and 2.5 mm wide; seeds with laciniate arils.

Ploidy: 2n = 18; 34; 51; 52; 54

Habitat: Cultivated and naturalized in mesic forest on O'ahu; Moloka'i; Lānaʻi; Maui; and Hawai'i.

Elevation Range: