Nothing screams "tropical" like heliconias. Before coming to Costa Rica I hadn't realized how many species there were, 194 in fact! There are red heliconias, yellow, orange, pink, and even hairy ones! The thing they all have in common is that the colorful part you see is actually a bract, or modified leaf, and the flower is the smaller part inside.
Most of the flowers are pollinated by hummingbirds, with their long, skinny, beaks they are some of the only animals that can get up in there! There are some species that are pollinated by bats as well. If you're lucky you might see a group of white bats using the leaves as shelter, they chew around the margin just enough so that the sides fold down and make a tent over them.
Here are some of the species we have seen:
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