And that would be in the U.S. Independence in Sri Lanka is on the 4th of February (1948) so no holiday today for us, unfortunately. Although yesterday we had Poya, which is a Buddhist public holiday.
I saw the most peculiar flower, I think, the other day.
My first thought was, “that can’t be real!”
At first I mistook it for some birds on a branch, but it was most definitely part of the tree. I have no idea what it’s called or even if it is a flower or maybe it’s a fruit. If anyone is familiar with the species, I’d love to know.
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I think that is a sort of ginger?…..extraordinary, anyway!
See, this is why we needed herbal experts on this trip. Good thing there’s one reading this backwater blog. ;)
It turns out this really is a ginger plant. This flower is called a “Heliconia Parrot’s Beak”, which is very aptly named, and is a distinctive bloom of the species Heliconia pendula which also present in places like Hawaii. It was growing on the side of a very steep slope, so this was the closest shot I could take on zoom.
The last “beak” at the very bottom actually contains a growing cluster of “beaks”, which fold to each side as the branch continues to lengthen; this was a fairly young cluster, but older ones can have 10 or so “beaks” on each side. Extraordinary indeed.
after your remind, it does look a bit bird, and an interesting one, lol