Hellooo Heliconia

In volume five of "Arrangements," we find ourselves perched on a leaf, ogling the lobster claw's vivid bracts.

As summer stretches its warm, endless days before us, it’s the perfect moment to immerse ourselves in the allure of Heliconia. Named after Mount Helicon, where the Muses were said to dwell in perpetual youth and beauty, heliconias carry that same enchantment. “Heliconias epitomize all that is strange yet alluring about warm-climate flora,” The New York Times once wrote. With nearly 200 species, their bracts blaze in reds, yellows and oranges — some standing tall, others hanging like pendants, their beak-shaped flowers dangling from sturdy stalks.

Native to the Americas, these plants flourish in humid tropics, their blooms unfurling with the rhythm of the rain. More than ornamental, they weave themselves into the ecological tapestry, attracting butterflies, hummingbirds and even the Honduran white bat — a fluffy powder puff with a bright yellow nose that makes tents in its leaves. In this edition of "Arrangements," let us become one of those bats, nestling into the vibrant, intricate world of heliconia. 

1. Heliconia has long been a favorite of florists. Just take a look at the photo of my mom and her flower arrangement in the 1980s. There I am, three years old, playing with strange plants (note my foot inching toward the anthurium). Not much has changed — except maybe the bangs.

2. Khôi Nguyen, aka Fleur Boy, takes an ethereal approach: “If flowers had dreams, what would they dream about?” he pondered in an interview with Joy Sauce. He answers that question by weaving together unexpected colors and plants, such as a spine-like heliconia with delicate, wispy oats.

3. For displaying your arrangements, I highly recommend Perla Valtierra’s handcrafted ceramics from Mexico. Her pieces, with their subtle palettes and delicate clay loops tracing the edges of vases, feature unique shapes and textures that beautifully complement heliconia.

4. In a photo of Tylor from Arium Botanicals, a houseplant shop based in Portland, OR, he holds a massive heliconia stalk, its flowers cascading over his shoulders. He and Alba Sanchez founded Arium with a vision to bring unusual plants into homes, creating a queer, Latinx-owned business dedicated to unique greenery and an inclusive community.

5. Bianca Nemelc's paintings are steeped in the Caribbean landscapes her ancestors once called home. Each piece embarks on a journey of reimagining and self-discovery, inspired by the flora and fauna of migration. In “Secret Between Muses,” brown limbs entwine with heliconia stalks, exploring the connection between the human form and the natural world.

6. Through his work, Honolulu-born artist Shingo Yamazaki explores cultural hybridity and the concept of home by blending Hawaii’s cultural nuances with his Korean and Japanese-American heritage. In "For Lack of Better Words," two women in a pink room — with a Keroppi sticker and a cat planted on the furniture — are obscured by a potted heliconia, as a door opens to an island vista.

7. In 1939, Georgia O'Keeffe’s nine-week trip to Hawaii yielded some of her most remarkable works. Among them, "Crab’s Claw Ginger," with its brilliant heliconia — a burst of scarlet and green bracts against the cyan sea — stands out. These pieces contrast with her minimalist New Mexican works, yet her signature close-cropping and magnification techniques connect them to her broader exploration of form and abstraction.

8. In Jiayi Li’s illustration, a bird curates a tropical arrangement, with a heliconia taking center stage. The scene feels like a futuristic reimagining of Disney’s Fantasia, but with an airbrushed, sleek and luminous quality that makes the heliconia glow with ethereal charm.

9. In March Avery's 1993 watercolor "Patient and Plant," a woman in a hospital gown is transfixed by a tropical arrangement. “They are too alive for this room, but pictorially fit perfectly within the scene,” David Whelan wrote in Arte Fuse. “I wondered, is the bouquet a figment of the patient’s imagination or an out-of-place wonder?”

10. Amid the granite mountains, tropical flowers and emerald forests of Rio de Janeiro, sculptor Gabriel Fonseca finds inspiration for his art. Within his 40-acre Sculpture Park, he melds steel pieces among greenery, including a striking heliconia sculpture set against a backdrop of overgrown monstera.

11. I leave you with Lorien Stern’s ceramic creation of a Honduran white bat, a fig-eating fluffball that exclusively nests in heliconia leaves. If you’d like to help protect this plant and the creatures that depend on it, please consider making a donation to a nonprofit like the Rainforest Alliance.

If you enjoyed this post, here are a few ways you can support my work:

• Get up close and personal with the bewitching Angel’s Trumpet — if you dare.

• Step into the world of the Passionflower, where striking beauty and symbolism intertwine.

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