This lifeform is found in Brazil. The red color will help identify this lifeform. This lifeform is frequently domesticated.

Macaw or firebird flower (Heliconia bihai) is native to Brazil. There are numerous hybrids for this very popular ornamental, and consequently this species is now found over a much broader range. The somewhat oblong leaves can be up to six feet long. The flowers in the wild form are whitish.

Heliconia plant genus is found in South America, various Pacific Islands, and west to Indonesia.  There are about 100 species of evergreen perennials in this genus.  The flowers have three sepals and three petals with somewhat united bases.  There are six species now growing in greater North America, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.  Some modern authors place this genus in its own family, the Heliconiaceae.  Here this family is retained in the banana family.  (Note:  There is a genus of butterflies of  the warmer areas of the New World entitled the Heliconius genus.)

Banana Group (Family Musaceae) is a small family with only five genera and about 150 species. It is found in both the New and Old World tropics. Although some species are planted in the United States as ornamentals, the family is not a native to North America. However, four species in this family are now considered established in greater North America, including Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

Scitamineae Order contains the Banana, Ginger, Canna, and Arrowroot Tropical Families.

Monocots are a large group of plants usually characterized by having leaves with parallel veins and a seed with a single shell. Most flowers are created with multiples of three. In  the older botany texts, the Monocots were considered more primitive than the Dicots. However, many recent authors have placed the Monocots as an offshoot of the primitive Dicots. Here they are placed before the Dicots.

Seed plants (Phylum Embryophyta) are generally grouped into one large phylum containing three major classes: the Gymnosperms, the Monocots, and the Dicots. (Some scientists separate the Gymnosperms into a separate phylum and refer to the remaining plants as flowering plants or Angiospermae.)

For North American counts of the number of species in each genus and family, the primary reference has been John T. Kartesz, author of A Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Canada, and Greenland (1994). The geographical scope of his lists include, as part of greater North America, Hawaii, Alaska, Greenland, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

Kartesz lists 21,757 species of vascular plants comprising the ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants as being found in greater North America (including Alaska, Hawaii, Greenland, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands).

There are estimates within the scientific world that about half of the listed North American seed plants were originally native with the balance being comprised of Eurasian and tropical plants that have become established.

Plant kingdom contains a large variety of different organisms including mosses, ferns, and seed plants. Most plants manufacture their energy from sunlight and water. Identification of many species is difficult in that most individual plants have characteristics that have variables based on soil moisture, soil chemistry, and sunlight.

Because of the difficulty in learning and identifying different plant groups, specialists have emerged that study only a limited group of plants. These specialists revise the taxonomy and give us detailed descriptions and ranges of the various species.  Their results are published in technical journals and written with highly specialized words that apply to a specific group.

On the other hand, there are the nature publishers. These people and companies undertake the challenging task of trying to provide easy to use pictures and descriptions to identify those species.