One of the most attractive and promising flowering pot plants to come to America in many years is the yellow-flowered Kaempferia decora, a plant known to botany for less than a decade and native to the grassy woodlands of Portuguese East Africa.
Kaempferia Decora
Roots of this new rare Kaempferia were sent to Europe from Mozambique, where they had escaped plant explorers for generations.
It has been imported and grown in the United States by many dedicated amateur and professional horticulturists, with high success.
Kaempferia decora belongs to the Ginger family (Zingiberaceae). The genus Kaempferia contains many small pot-size ornamental plants, some in Southeast Asia and a few in tropical and southern Africa.
Botanists describe this new species as close to Kaempferia Rosea and Kaempferia pleiantha, neither in cultivation.
It grows from a root complex, like a miniature eremurus, with a central crown and a large cluster of fleshy appended roots.
Large crowns may be divided into several plants with a penknife, and propagation is possible from selfed seeds.
Brilliant In Full Bloom
The foliage stem is like a small Curcuma, or even a canna with pleated leaves, one might say, up to a foot to one and one-half feet tall.
There are 4 or 5 leaves, 10” or 15” inches long and 4 “or 5” inches broad in large specimens.
The flower stem rises from the rhizome and may have three to 15 flowers. These are primrose yellow, brilliant and striking, even sensational when the plant is fully bloomed.
Good Specimen
A good specimen may have two spikes blooming at once. The flowers open in succession and are up to 2″ or more inches across.
The plants go dormant in late fall and are stored dry in their soil over winter, like many gingers of this type.
A good sandy potting compost, fertile, and well-drained, suits it admirably. Dr. H. G. Schweicherdt made the first collection of Kaempferia decora, and it was not described in print until 1953.
44659 by Wyndham Hayward