Anthurium

The glossy red heart of an anthurium is not a petal at all. It is a spathe, a modified leaf, and the true flowers are the tiny bumps crowded along the pale spike at its center. That is why the color lasts for weeks and looks almost lacquered.

Anthuriums arrived in Hawaiʻi in the late 1800s and found a perfect home in the wet, shaded uplands above Hilo. Generations of island growers bred them into hundreds of forms — obake greens, pinks, whites, and the deep reds that became a signature Hawaiian export.

They are flowers of hospitality, often given to say welcome, and they ask for very little: filtered light, humidity, and someone to admire them.