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Odontonema cuspidatum
Also called Cardinal's Crest, Cardinal Flower, Cardinal Spear, Scarlet Firespike, Cardinal’s Guard
In Singapore: Cardinal's Crest, Cardinal's Guard, Scarlet Fire-spike, Firestick, 红苞花, 红楼花 (Grown in Singapore)
Odontonema cuspidatum is a shrub or subshrub from Central America and southern Mexico, grown for its tall spikes of scarlet tubular flowers. It thrives in warm, humid conditions and is best grown in a sheltered spot with some shade from strong afternoon sun.
Odontonema cuspidatum, the mottled toothedthread, the Cardinal's guard, or the firespike, is a species of plant in the family Acanthaceae which is endemic to Mexico, but has been introduced to Florida, Central America, South America, the West Indies, and several Pacific Islands.
[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 Odontonema cuspidatum 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.
