Heliconias

7 March 2009

The winds are way down and the rain also let up late this morning. So we managed to get some nice walking in. We went back to Bajo del Tigre. We spotted a gray fox (Daniela photographed it; I was too late arriving but did see it). We also saw some nice butterflies, both the “postman” variety with wide and shallow wings and also some glass-wing butterflies with major transparent patches on their wings.

The photo subject for today is Heliconias. I thought that Heliconias were related to the common (in California) “bird of paradise.” Today, I learned otherwise. According to Wikipedia, “Heliconia is a genus of about 100 to 200 species of flowering plants native to the tropical Americas and the Pacific Ocean islands west to Indonesia.”

People plant them here and they also grow wild. They are widespread around Monteverde, and we’ve seen them in many places across Costa Rica.

At Bajo del Tigre, they grow regularly along the trail. The flowers seem to always be in bloom. They are long lasting and fleshy. Wikipedia describes their growth habits with language I lack: “Their flowers are produced on long, erect or drooping panicles, and consist of brightly colored waxy bracts, with small true flowers peeping out from the bracts.”

There is apparently a close coevolutionary relationship between hummingbirds and heliconias, both of which are native to the Americas and especially Central America. Here is an extensive quote (http://cloudbridge.org/heliconias.htm)

“Heliconias and Hummingbirds
“Heliconias in the tropics rely exclusively on hummingbirds for pollination. This accounts for their bright red, yellow and orange colors, which attract hummingbirds. In addition to their colors, the Heliconias have developed long flower tubes with rich nectar contents. While obtaining the energy-rich food that they need to survive, brush pollen off onto the sticky surface of the stigma, the female organ of the Heliconia flower. The pollen may be obtained from the anther, the male organ of a different heliconia flower, or perhaps of the same flower, since heliconias are also self-compatible. Thus, in this way hummingbirds help Heliconias to propagate their species. The hummingbirds also evolved long curved bills to be able to reach to the bottom of the flower tube to obtain the nectar. Even their tongue is long — twice as long as the bill — so that they can reach even further down the tube.

“In most cases the size of the flower tube on the plant matches the exact size of the bill on the pollinating hummingbird. Certain Heliconias with deep flower tubes rely on a specific hummingbird with an extra long bill to pollinate them.

“Unlike most other flowers, Heliconias have evolved a relationship that gives hummingbirds ‘exclusive’ feeding (and pollination) rights, because neither color nor smell has developed to attract insects. Hummingbirds have no sense of smell. And different species of heliconia uses the birds in different ways. Each species places its pollen on a specific part of a hummingbird’s body to avoid pollen waste and contamination from other Heliconia species in the same region.”

Neat.

These photos are all from our neighborhood: on the road to the Monteverde Cloud Forest reserve and Bajo del Tigre.