Handy Pocket Guide to Tropical Plants. Elisabeth Chan

Asia to provide flavoring for food. It is also grated very finely into a pot-pourri mixture for temple and altar offerings and, rather peculiarly, to be placed in drawers and taxis to deter cockroaches.

      The species on opposite top left is P. spiralis which has a marked twist to its habit of growth, and the variegated form, opposite bottom, is a cultivated ornamental.

      Tree Fern

      Cyathea spp.

      Botanical family: Cyatheaceae

      Tree ferns are forest dwellers, partial to dim coolness and damp. Some are found in lowland forests where they do not grow very tall (up to 3 m). The tree ferns found in the hills and upland areas of the tropics do very much better and are a conspicuous feature of these areas. They also grow in more open secondary forest.

      The tree fern resembles a delicate palm tree. It has a rough and hairy trunk, marked with the remains of leaf bases. The fern fronds at the growing tip look like palm fronds as they are concentrated at the top of the trunk.

      Within the genus they are easy to pick out, but to identify species requires a deeper knowledge of the scaly young parts and leaves. A clue may come from the name, taken from the Greek word for cup, kyatheion: this is what to look for in the cover of the spore cases that are found on the lower side of the fern frond.

      Tree ferns are often logged for the horticultural trade as the trunks make good growing poles for epiphytic plants.

      Bird's Nest Fern

      Asplenium nidus

      Botanical family: Asplemaceae

      This is a popular house plant in temperate climate homes where it forms a dainty roseate of about 10 cm. In its native Old World tropics it can grow to 2 m across.

      In its natural habitat, Asplenium nidus varies in size depending on its location and the availability of water and a continuous supply of decomposing detritus from trees and insects which provide the fern with nutrients. This matter falls into the 'nest' formed by the fronds which grow in alternately overlapping circles.

      A colonizing fern, it is epiphytic on suitable trees, but is commonly seen on the ground where it has fallen from its perch but continues to grow As the fern grows upward and outward simultaneously, the root mass becomes deeper and spongier and is able to hold a great quantity of water. This attracts other fern spores to colonize the root mass. In some Malay rural areas, the plant is believed to have supernatural properties, or of being the home of the lansuir, a female banshee hostile to pregnant women.

      Gingers

      Alpinia purpurata; Costus speciosus; Nicolaia elatior, Tapeinochilus ananassae; Zingiber officinale

      Botanical familys: Costaceae; Zingiberaceae

      Gingers are among the flashier members of the plant world. They have a high profile in coffee-table books and are the mainstay of the tropical cut flower industry.

      Costus speciosus (see opposite centre left) is a member of the family Costaceae. The fleshy velvety leaves grow spirally around the stem in a characteristic clockwise direction. The stem is cane-like, reddish and tall, and the dark red inflorescence is terminal on the stem. The white or slightly pink flower, tubular with a pretty frill, emerges from the bracts and is edible. The rhizome is used for medicinal purposes.

      Tapeinochilus ananassae, also from the family Costaceae, is appropriately known as the wax ginger (see far right). The plant produces canes that are dark red in color and tall, but, unlike the Costus speciosus, it branches at the top of the stem. The inflorescence has large bracts—red, shiny, stiff and pineapple-like—with insignificant flowers. It does not grow tall; several cluster around the base of the plant.

      Alpinia purpurata (on bottom right) is a zingiber. It is a popular landscape ginger, the pink form of which is called 'Eileen Mcdonald'. The plant propagates itself by producing plantlets from the flowering bracts.

      Nicolaia elatior (on opposite top left) belongs to the Zingeberaceae. Called the torch ginger, its leafstalks are tall, about 10 to 15 m and the 'torch' itself is about 1 to 2 m. Torches, produced singly from the ground on a long stalk, are composed of big flower heads of waxy overlapping bracts with small flowers. In Southeast Asia they are visited by small sunbirds, as each row of flowers opens in turn. The bud is used sparingly as a flavoring for food.

      Zingiber officinale, the oldest 'Oriental' spice known to the Western world is the familiar ginger rhizome used worldwide (see above left). Although it was recorded in China 500 years ago, its place of origin is unknown, but it is suspected to be an Indian cultigen.

      Banana Plant

      Musa spp.

      Botanical family: Musaceae

      Any discussion of tropical plants must include the banana. Yet ethnobotanists do not know exactly where the fruit originated. The most generally accepted theory is that as the Indo-Malesian area is the main center of diversity, this is strong evidence of origin.

      There are hundreds of edible banana varieties; in Indonesia alone there are over 230 recorded, but the bananas of commerce are far fewer, due to considerations of quality, aesthetic appeal, flavor and so on. The two species banana that are considered to be the parents of most of the edible seedless bananas eaten by man are Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana.

      The banana is such a pan-tropical that it grows everywhere man has planted it. It is even said that the slaves in the West Indies for whom the breadfruit was painfully collected by Captain Bligh, declined to eat it because they preferred bananas.

      Species bananas are more interesting botanically, even though they are tasteless or full of seeds. Pictured here are three of the more spectacular varieties. The banana with the incredibly long fruiting stem is called the 1000 banana plant in Indonesia and Malaysia. Even if the actual number of bananas does not reach 1000, the bunch is a marvel of nature: It is sometimes so long and the fruits so numerous that the bunch reaches the ground.

      The banana pictured on the top left is Musa velutina. The pretty red fruits actually peel themselves from the base of the fruit up, to entice a potential customer to eat them and thereby spread the seeds. The banana (opposite middle left) with the striking red flowers, Musa coccinea, is purely ornamental as its fruits are small and hard.

      In addition to being eaten fresh, bananas may be cooked, chipped, made into alcoholic drinks or processed into starch. The leaves are used to wrap foods or to line utensils in which food is prepared. The flowers of the inflorescence and the center of the stem are also edible.