“Red Pine Cones”, a copyrighted post, was written for my WordPress blog called Always Growing by Jan in Covington, Louisiana
Pine cones and fall go together, but the pine cones I have been interested in lately are not your normal pine cones. I have been watching and waiting for the pine cone ginger (Zingiber zerumbet) to produce its “pine cone.” Finally, the red “pine cones” were visible.
I wrote about this plant last year about this time, but this year I have more of the ginger pine cones. I think this is such a neat plant. All summer long, there is the lovely, lush foliage, and then come autumn, these bright red pine cones appear.
The fragrance given off by these red “cones” is also very nice. The milky substance in the “cones” which is supposed to be a very good shampoo (hence the other common name for this plant, Shampoo Ginger) has a lovely lanolin smell, but I have never tried it as a shampoo as I would hate to ruin the pretty, red cones. However, I have squeezed them after they have aged and there is a thin, milky cream, which smells divine, that I could see being used as a shampoo. I know my hands liked the feel of that sweet-smelling liquid.
Last year when I wrote about this plant, I was hoping that it would spread and produce more “cones.” Looks like I have gotten my wish.