Culture
Winter hardy to USDA Zones 11-12 where it is best grown in evenly moist but well-drained soils in part shade. Allow soils to dry out somewhat between applications of water. Plants like medium to high humidity levels. When grown indoors as a houseplant, it is best sited in a curtain-filtered, eastern, western or northern exposure in part shade to bright full shade. Houseplants prefer a daily temperatures range of 65 to 85 degrees F. Propagate by female plant seeds, cuttings or air layering. Plants will sucker from the base.
Noteworthy Characteristics
Freycinetia cumingiana, commonly called climbing freycinetia or climbing pandanus, is an evergreen tropical climbing vine or scrambling shrub of the screw pine family. It is native to rainforests in the Philippine Islands. It typically grows to 3’ tall as a scrambling shrub when unsupported, but may grow to 7’ tall or more as a vine when its woody stems are able to attach to and climb upon adjacent upright structures (e.g., tree trunks, large shrubs or trellises) via slender aerial roots which develop along its stems.
Climbing freycinetia is dioecious (male and female flowers bloom on separate plants). Flowers bloom at the branch ends. Staminate male flowers are generally considered to be more ornamentally attractive than the pistillate female flowers, and as such male plants are commercially grown in Hawaii today for shipment of flowering stems to the continental U.S. as part of the cut flower market. Flowers bloom winter to spring. The shorter daylight hours of late fall in large part trigger the commencement of bloom by early December, with bloom typically continuing to April but occasionally to early June.
Greenish apetalous flowers are densely arranged within cylindrical spikes which appear at the branch ends on both male and female plants. A cluster of 3 or 4 flower spikes is subtended by several large, extremely showy orange to pink-orange bracts. The flower display, as it were, comes not from the flowers themselves but from the orange bracts. Flowers on female plants are followed by attractive red fruits. Narrow, leathery, linear-lanceolate, dark green leaves (to 4-10” long) are parallel-veined.
This genus was named by Charles Gaudichaud Beaupre (1789-1854), botanist who first collected and described the genus Freycinetia in honor of Admiral Louis Claude de Saulses de Freycinet (1779-1842), French naval officer, cartographer and navigator who explored Australia and islands in the Pacific.
Specific epithet honors Hugh Cuming (1791-1865), English naturalist who collected shells and plants from a number of places around the world including the Philippines.
Problems
No known serious insect or disease problems. Mealybugs occasionally appear.
Uses
Tropical plant that is winter hardy to USDA Zone 11. May be grown as a houseplant in containers that are best placed in curtain-filtered windows lacking full sun exposure.