Wild flower on a rainy day

Shot this unusual beauty at Chhota Kashmir (Film City) Mumbai on a cloudy Sunday afternoon. I came across this unsual flowering plant just when I wound up a 2 hour floral shoot and was on my way out. It was quite a task setting up my tripod in the slush & manually focusing at the longer end of my Sigma 70-300 APO DG Macro. It is amazing how nature presents itself with something as captivating as this when one doesn’t have any specific goal.

This plant is a Crepe Ginger, Botanical name: Costus speciosus, Family: Costaceae (Spiral Ginger family). It is known as Kusht or Keokanda in Hindi.

Despite its common name, crepe ginger is only a distant relative of the edible ginger family. It is a tall and dramatic landscape plant with large dark green leaves arranged on the stalk in a spiral. This Costus can grow to 10 ft tall in frost-free areas, but is typically small as a potted plant. The flowers appear in late summer or early fall, and are quite unusual looking. They form on red 4 in cone-shaped bracts, with several 2 in pure white crinkled flowers protruding from each cone. The flowers look like crepe paper - thus the common name of crepe ginger. After the flowers fade away, the attractive red cone-shaped bracts remain. The large crepy object is not the petal, but the stamen - the three true petals of each flower are inconspicuous, and are almost hidden by the bell shaped stamen. A very unusual flower indeed !

Canon 550 D, Sigma 70-300 mm APO DG Macro, AE, Av 8.0, Tv 1/80, ISO 400, FL 300 mm, Ev.Metering, EC 0, Manual Focus, CWB, Tripod, Full frame. C & C welcome please.

A humble request to our dear Moderators to kindly explore the possibilities of creating a flora category in the near future please. Thanks.

The white crinkled flower looks nice. Seems the one on the left has faded. Good details. Wish the out of focus leaf in the foreground was not present, for a clearer view of the red cone shaped bracts. Thanks for providing the detailed information of this plant. Look forward to more.

P.S - Will check with Sabyasachi about creating a flora category. Thanks for the suggestion.

Mrudul Ji, many thanks for your kind comments.

Yes, the out of focus shrub in the FG is a distraction indeed. I could neither get closer to the plant nor find a suitable place to stand amidst the slush and felt it'd be better not to disturb the natural surroundings by doing away with the shrub even if temporarily for the sake of making an image.

I'm glad creating a flora category is being considered since there are lots of species that need to be documented in order to spread awareness. Thank you once again.

Here is another shot of this beauty taken from a different angle & closer up. If not for my dear Tripod, I might perhaps have skidded & fallen right into the marshland !

Cheers,

Vijay

One of the plants we immediately associate with the monsoons. Agree with Mrudul's comments.
TFS
P.S. Agree that a separate Flora section would be good, and maybe a separate invertebrates section too if possible...

Thanks Abhishek for your comments. Here is another shot of this beauty.

Exif : AE, f/10,1/160, ISO 200, MF, FF.

Nice one. Thanks for the information. I didn't knew the details about this species. We can certainly create a Flora section. It can have all flowering, non-flowering plants and trees. We need to decide a name to that section.

We also need to invite more people to start posting specifically in this section so that more documentation can happen.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi