What Precisely Anthorium Flowers Are?

Anthurium flowers acquire their name from the Greek words which happen to be "anthos", and "oura". The word "Anthos" is interpreted as flower, and "oura" in English means tail. It may appropriately be called the flower on a tail. The actual flowers are not the colorful parts that we think are characteristics of flowering greenery. The spathe contains very little flowers that aren't easily seen by the naked eye, one must use a magnifying glass. The colorful part of the plant looks something like a cross between a petal and a leaf.

The flower is normally bright red, some varieties also come in green, pink, orange, peach or white. The fabulous colors are the dominant part of the plant and it is easy to refer to this as the flower part of the plant. However, the colorful spathe surrounds an inflorescence. It is referred to as a stalk, or spadix. This is the part of the plant that does contain the actually flowers, but they look more like little bumps even under a magnifying glass. As they begin to bloom they will start to look like just some little fuzzy bumps on the spadix.

Anthurium flowers are exotic plants, and their flowers can come in lot of different varieties. Some of these plants are big, and they are colorful and bright. On the larger range the spathe can be nearly a foot wide and flower stalks grow to be over a foot long. But on the opposite end of the growth chart is a plant which is barely 6 inches high. The spathe on this tiny plant is just about an inch wide.

Several of these plants grow upright and they have single leaves which grow on the end of very long stalks. However some of the species look more like a compact bush. There are some varieties that are trailing plants. This type of plant works well for hanging baskets. One of the things that make these flowers so popular is their long blooming period. Even if the flowers are cut and placed in a vase with water they will stay healthy and fresh looking for almost 6 weeks.

Although it is tropical and can't be grown outside in most of the states in North America, it might be grown inside as a house plant. It does quite nicely outdoors in more tropical areas such as Hawaii, South America and the Caribbean. Anthurium flowers don't need a lot of maintenance and are relatively easy to grow. They do need to be watered on a regular basis.