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Hedychium densiflorum Ludlow, Sherriff & Hicks 17393
Accepted name Hedychium densiflorum Ludlow, Sherriff & Hicks 17393
Synonyms Distribution Description References Comments Hedychium densiflorum LS&H 17393 is something of a collectors plant although it has proven to be amongst the most cold hardy Hedychium. It has something of a poor reputation in the gardening literature, the flowers often being written of rather dismissively as weakly coloured. It is quite true that they are not as intensely orange as 'Assam Orange' but many people are quite taken with the subtly coloured, two-tone orange flowers. While visually pleasing the flowers do not reward olfactory scrutiny having a rather unpleasant camphoraceous smell. The cut rhizomes though have an attractive smell and are much more fragrant than typical Hedychium densiflorum.
The plant is of interest since it is a Bhutanese form of the species and represents, so far, the eastern-most collection of the species in cultivation in the UK. The plant was collected by Ludlow, Sherriff & Hicks on 3rd October 1949 at an altitude of almost 2,000 m at Gasa Dzong in north-western Bhutan. Bhutan is now closed to plant collectors.