As a young child I have always looked at my grandma's beautiful anthurium flowers in her garden and wondered what exactly they were. Therefore, I have decided to do some research on anthuriums. Anthuriums are herbaceous epipthytes and are produced with a wide arrange of colors and heart shaped spathes. They come from the family Araceae and consists of over 100 genera which include Anthurium, Dieffenbachia, Xanthosoma, Spathiphyllum, and Aglaonema to name a few. The genus Anthurium consists of over 1500 species and over 600 which inhabit tropical America.
S.M. Damon introduced the anthurium to Hawaii in 1889 from London and the color consisted of a pink color. They were grown at the Damon Estates in Moanalua then distributed by other growers by vegetative propagation. By 1930s and 1940s Hawaii growers started to cultivate the anthurium by seed propagation leading to increased variation of the plant.
Today in the Hawaiian floriculture industry the anthuriums are the most important and most cut. The anthurium industry grew from mainly backyard growers and by 1959 there were over 266 farms on Hawaii island, 88 from Oahu, 7 on Kauai, and 4 on Maui. Demand on the anthurium increased from 40 acres to 400 acres of planting. Hawaii today is the top four producers of Anthuriums worldwide.
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