Species
+

Heliconia bihai (L.) L.

Lobster Claw Heliconia, Macaw flower, Macawflower, Wild Banana

Climate known 52 photographs Tropical foliage plant
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Heliconia bihai of the family Heliconiaceae is an erect herb typically growing taller than 1.5 m. It is native to northern South America and the West Indies. It is especially common in northern Brazil and the Guianas but also found in Hispaniola, Jamaica, the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, Venezuela and Colombia. Other names by which the plant is commonly known include balisier and macawflower.

Text from Wikipedia, “Heliconia bihai”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Heliconia

Heliconia is a genus of flowering plants in the monotypic family Heliconiaceae. Most of the 194 known species are native to the tropical Americas, but a few are indigenous to certain islands of the western Pacific and Maluku in Indonesia. Many species of Heliconia are found in the tropical forests of these regions. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Heliconia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Heliconiaceae
Described by
(L.) L.
Native to
Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Southwest +13
Wild records
882 in range· 343 open

At a glance

Warmest month
28°C
Sep, mean day; nights 22 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
2070mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jun 230 mm (CHELSA)
Light
29–36DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by the genus Heliconia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (April to November at the habitat (not shifted)). Habitat rain 2070 mm a year, wettest June at 230 mm, driest March at 95 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 36 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 16.9 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Bihai bihai (L.) Griggs; Bihai distans (Griggs) Griggs; Bihai purpurea (Griggs) Griggs; Bihai rutila (Griggs) Griggs; Heliconia biahij Vell. and 10 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by the genus Heliconia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table supplies one figure for this group, a conventional minimum for the cold floor, and no prose.

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (April to November at the habitat (not shifted)).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (1602 mm of 2070 mm) takes 8 months, April to November. Mean temperature moves 2.0 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere, within 10° of the equator; with no thermal season there there is no season to reverse, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 2070 mm a year, wettest June at 230 mm, driest March at 95 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

2070 mm a year at the habitat, 1602 mm of it April to November. Wettest month June at 230 mm, driest March at 95 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1385 mm to 3338 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 36 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 36 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 24, the highest 90th-percentile month 42).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 16.9 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 16.9 °C, the absolute minimum 14.2 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 38.7 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 21.2 °C in January (across the envelope cells 14.6 °C to 23.5 °C), warmest day 28.2 °C in September (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 16.9 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER); the archetype table's minimum for a tropical foliage plant, 12 °C, is lower and does not raise it.

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence, and the archetype table's group minimum where that is higher. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 65 to 69% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 26 °C in Jan to 28 °C in Sep; mean night from 21 °C in Jan to 22 °C in May. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 2070 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 517 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 14.2 °C and the 99th-percentile day 38.7 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°15°20°25°30°35°40°38.7° 99th-percentile day (undated)14.2° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 29–36RH 65–69 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 517 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C26 / 22–2927 / 23–2927 / 23–3028 / 24–3028 / 24–3028 / 24–3028 / 24–3028 / 24–3128 / 24–3228 / 23–3227 / 23–3127 / 22–30
Night °C21 / 15–2421 / 15–2421 / 16–2422 / 16–2422 / 17–2522 / 17–2522 / 16–2522 / 16–2522 / 16–2522 / 16–2522 / 15–2422 / 15–24
Rain mm116 / 35–33097 / 34–29295 / 33–313167 / 63–391211 / 108–445230 / 109–401210 / 96–357190 / 100–332198 / 65–364210 / 72–344186 / 87–309160 / 56–292
DLI30 / 25–3432 / 27–3735 / 29–4134 / 27–4232 / 25–4132 / 25–4134 / 27–4136 / 30–4036 / 30–3933 / 28–3831 / 25–3429 / 24–32
RH %67 / 62–7166 / 61–7065 / 60–7167 / 61–7168 / 63–7269 / 63–7368 / 63–7267 / 62–7267 / 61–7267 / 62–7268 / 63–7368 / 63–72

Each figure is the median across the 517 grid cells holding the 853 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1920:2595 (-6.025, -50.225). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 14.2 °C, 1st-percentile night 16.9 °C, 99th-percentile day 38.7 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 517 distinct grid cells holding the 853 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1920:2595 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -6.00_-50.000, lapse-corrected +120 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 417 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeMexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Leeward Is. AB Ant, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago, Windward Is., French Guiana, Guyana, Surinam, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil North· introduced: Thailand, Hawaii, Jamaica
Kew's description“rhizomatous geophyte” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker4.864, -52.347 · in the densest population, 323 records (37% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 882 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 343 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 4 km away. 660 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 29 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 882 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Heliconia bihaiHeliconia bihaiHeliconia bihaiHeliconia bihaiHeliconia bihaiHeliconia bihaiHeliconia bihaiHeliconia bihai

Photographs: (c) Jo Roberts, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0; (c) Carlos Otávio Gussoni, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Peter Quakenbush, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Martin Vallejos, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Alfredo Gutierrez Dipaz, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Heliconia bihai, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

A Heliconia Insect Community in a Venezuelan Cloud Forest
Richard P. Seifert, Florence Hammett Seifert (1979) · Ecology
Control of Community Structure by Mosquito Larvae
Bassett Maguire, Denton Belk, Glenda Wells (1968) · Ecology
Pollinator‐mediated selection in a specialized hummingbird–Heliconiasystem in the Eastern Caribbean
Ethan J. Temeles, Y. J. Rah, Jonathan Andicoechea, K. L. Byanova (2012) · Journal of Evolutionary Biology
The chilling injury effect in cut flowers: a brief review
Anastasios I. Darras (2019) · The Journal of Horticultural Science and Biotechnology
Acclimatization of micropropagated Heliconia bihai (Heliconiaceae) plants
Paulo Hercílio Viegas Rodrigues, Ana Maria Liner Pereira Lima, Gláucia María Bovi Ambrosano, Maria de Fátima Batista Dutra (2005) · Scientia Agricola
Chitosan coating effect on vase life of flowering stems of Heliconia bihai (L.) L. cv. Halloween
K.P. Bañuelos-Hernández, José Rodolfo García-Nava, Otto Raúl Leyva–Ovalle, Cecilia B. Peña-Valdivia (2017) · Postharvest Biology and Technology
Storage of cut Heliconia bihai (L.) cv. Lobster Claw flowers at low temperatures
Andreza Santos da Costa, Luis Carlos Nogueira, Venézio Felipe dos Santos, Terezinha Rangel Câmara (2011) · Revista Brasileira de Engenharia Agrícola e Ambiental
Two New Genera of Leaf-Parasitic Fungi (Basidiomycetidae: Brachybasidiaceae)
John L. Cunningham, Parshant Bakshi, Paul L. Lentz, Martina S. Gilliam (1976) · Mycologia
Alterações morfofisiológicas e crescimento de helicônias em função de diferentes ambientes de sombreamento
Rafaela Ribeiro de Souza, Márkilla Zunete Beckmann-Cavalcante, Everaldo Moreira da Silva, Genilda Canuto Amaral (2016) · Comunicata Scientiae

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Heliconia 3 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 91 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.