Columnea gloriosa
Hand-painted blue pine panel + sphagnum-covered Voronoi hemisphere
Columnea gloriosa mounted on a hand-painted blue pine panel. A trailing cloud-forest epiphyte with soft red-furred foliage and scarlet, hooded flowers that leap off the vine like goldfish. The stems cascade over time, and San Francisco's cool fog suits it better than almost anywhere in the country.
A trailing epiphyte from the cloud forests of Costa Rica, where it drapes from mossy branches in cool, constantly humid air. Columnea gloriosa is grown for two things at once: the foliage and the flowers. Its small leaves are covered in fine red hairs that catch the light and give the whole plant a soft reddish, almost velvet cast, and the blooms are scarlet, hooded, and tubular, leaping off the trailing stems exactly like the common name promises. Each flower is shaped for a hummingbird's bill, the curved hood brushing pollen onto the bird as it reaches in for nectar. Mounted on a panel, the stems cascade downward over years. San Francisco's cool, foggy air sits closer to its native cloud forest than almost anywhere else in the country, so it tends to grow happier here than it has any right to.
Velvet red leaves and scarlet flowers that leap off the vine like goldfish. One of the few plants that looks just as good before it blooms as after.
