Yeah, I have to show off more of the Roscoea ‘Cinnamon Stick’, it’s tooooo beautiful…

Roscoea purpurea ‘Cinnamon Stick’

The first species to flower is also one of the most cultivated – Roscoea cautleoides. Typically it has pale yellow flowers, but there are also forms with pink flowers.

Roscoea cautleoides

Roscoea cautleoides ‘Jeffrey Thomas’ – flowers with an enlarged labellum, primrose yellow and the hood with a deeper yellow

Roscoea auriculata – native of Nepal, Sikkim and Xizang, has large flowers usually deep violet or purple and consistently auriculate (eared) leaves on the pseudostem. It is sometimes confused with R. purpurea, however it flowers earlier and it has white staminodes and a strongly downward-facing labellum.

Roscoea auriculata

Roscoea auriculata – group photo

Grown from a batch of seedlings supposedly of R. cautleoides, it was a very pleasant surprise for us to discover that we have a new species in cultivation: Roscoea scillifolia f. atropurpurea. This one seems to be rare not only in cultivation but in the wild too, so it is fair to say that we just got lucky!

Roscoea scillifolia – f. atropurpurea, with small flowers of almost black colour