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The Genus Anthurium

The common conception of anthuriums is that they are colorful potted plants offered for sale at flower shops with large, waxy-looking red blossoms, mildly obscene-looking yellow things sticking up from them, and large deep green arrow-shaped leaves with prominent veins.

While that is true, it is only a small part of the anthurium story. In fact, anthurium is a genus comprised of over 1,000 species. The most commercially common species, shown above, is Anthurium andreanum, or A. andreanum. Common names for various anthurium species are flamingo flower, tailflower, painter's palette, oilcloth flower, and laceleaf.

All anthuriums are native to the Americas, from Central America to Argentina, and many Caribbean islands. They are jungle plants that thrive best in a warm, humid, shaded environment. The ones below are in their native habitat.

From the shape and size of the leaves, one can tell that these are a different species of anthurium than the potted variety at the top.

There are other colors of anthurium spathes than red; examples below are orange, pink, and white. They also come in purple, green, and peach colors. Note that the spadix is not always yellow.

The colors aren't always solid (not counting changes due to aging). The variegated anthurium below is a cultivar of  A. andreanum, the potted plant species in the first photo. 

In 1876, a European botanist discovered anthuriums in a Columbian rainforest similar to these and took specimens to Belgium. Soon afterward, specimens were acquired by London's Kew Gardens. Some of those were taken to a private estate in Hawaii in 1889. Soon escaping into the wild, anthuriums have long since become so prevalent in Hawaii that many think that they are native to the state.

A hybrid anthurium created in Hawaii is shown below.

Its Japanese name is beniuchiwa. It is called an obake, literally meaning "thing that changes". but it also translates to ghost.

The terms "spathes" and "spadix" were used above. This illustration shows what those are.

Anthurium blossoms aren't the only flowers with the spathe/spadix arrangement. Calla lilies, for example, are like that.

n both the calla lily and anthurium, the actual flowers are tiny bumps on the spadix. Here is what the spadix looks like when it is just emerging from the protective spathe, a form of sheath.

This is a close-up view of the more mature spadix

Each one of those bumps is or becomes a tiny flower. When they initially mature, they are female. Later on, they become pollen producing males. This prevents a plant from being self-fertilizing. Not all anthurium species behaves exactly the same, but there are many similarities. The fruit of several species resemble berries. The fruit of anthurium gracile is shown below.

These, in turn, produce seeds. These seeds are from the Queen anthurium (A. warocqueanum)

Kondo Ariyoshi (active 1830 - 1850)

Kondo studied art under a prominent Kyōto painter, Kishi Ganku (1756 - 1838), who combined Japanese, Chinese, and Western painting styles. It is said that Kondo's painting skills surpassed his master's. Kondo died young, but many of his paintings were turned into woodblock prints by Nambara Keisho and published in Taisei Shinshafu (Comprehensive manual of realistic sketches) in 1888. Four of Kondo's paintings were of various species of anthuriums.

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887 – 1986)

O'Keeffe was an avant-garde American artist in the early decades of the 20th century. She is especially noted for her synthesis of realism and abstraction in paintings of natural objects. Among O'Keeffe's many notable achievements were her flower paintings. This anthurium painting, done in 1923, is one of her earliest. It was discovered on the back of another painting and separated in 1979.