Hawaiian Volcano Plants

Well now, that's interesting ... Hawaiian Volcano Plants. Nice label at Home Depot's garden center. A bit misleading, perhaps, but nice name anyway.

The flowers of course are anthuriums, those beautiful red heart-shaped flowers with the shiny, waxy surfaces and prominent white, yellow-tipped spike called a spadix.

Anthuriums are plentiful on the Big Island of Hawaii, which is where the state's major volcanos are located. So I guess it's natural for some clever marketer to dub the anthuriums "volcano plants."

Whenever I go to Hilo, the wife puts freshly cut anthuriums on my "bring back" list. And apparently she's not the only one, because I see a lot of them being carried on carefully when passengers load up on the plane in Hilo.

Call them whatever you want, as long as you know what they're really called.