The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Costus curvibracteatus is a tropical rhizomatous perennial from the Costaceae family, native to montane forest understory in Costa Rica and Panama. It is grown mainly as a warm, shaded, moist ornamental or houseplant, and is often confused with Costus productus in the trade.
Costus curvibracteatus is a tropical rhizomatous perennial native to Costa Rica and Panama.
Costus curvibracteatus produces abundant nectar in its tubular florets and is pollinated by hummingbirds. Its seeds, by which it reproduces, are contained within glabrous, ellipsoid capsules, 10 to 17 mm long.
Only occasionally cultivated as an ornamental, it can nevertheless be grown successfully in milder climates if kept warm and sheltered in a shady location, with well-watered soil. It also grows well when potted and indoors. The plant can be grown from seeds, by first soaking them, or from cuttings of a mature plant.
Costus curvibracteatus is native to Costa Rica and Panama, where it usually grows in the understory of forested montane areas between 700 and 1,900 metres (2,300 and 6,200 ft). The plant can sometimes be found growing as low as 50 m (160 ft). One record exists of the plant being found in the Chocó region of Colombia.
Spiral Ginger · Costus barbatus · Costus chartaceus · Red Tower Ginger · Costus erythrophyllus · African Spiral Flag · Costus malortieanus · Red Rose Ginger · Costus productus · Spiral ginger · Indian Head Ginger · Spiked spiralflag
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Costus curvibracteatus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
