Ginger-lily

Hedychium gardnerianum, the Kahili ginger, is a large rhizomatous perennial herb in the family Zingiberaceae, native to the eastern Himalaya from Nepal to Yunnan and Bhutan, where it grows in shaded forest margins and clearings between about 1000 and 2400 m elevation. From thick fleshy aromatic rhizomes it produces erect, leafy pseudostems 1.5-2.5 m tall, clothed in two ranks of broadly lanceolate, glossy green leaves up to 50 cm long. In late summer and autumn it bears a dense, narrowly cylindrical terminal spike 25-45 cm long of fragrant lemon-yellow flowers, each with a slender corolla tube, narrow petal lobes and a long, conspicuous red filament that gives the inflorescence a fiery appearance. Bright orange seed capsules split to reveal scarlet arils enclosing black seeds. The species is widely cultivated and has become a serious invasive in Hawaii, the Azores, Madeira and parts of New Zealand.