Most of the 194 known species[3] are native to the tropical Americas, but a few are indigenous to certain islands of the western Pacific and Maluku in Indonesia.

They are characteristically long, oblong, alternate, or growing opposite one another on nonwoody petioles often longer than the leaf, often forming large clumps with age.

The flowers can be hues of reds, oranges, yellows, and greens, and are subtended by brightly colored bracts.

[11] The generic name Heliconia was given by Carl Linnaeus in 1771 from the Greek word Ἑλικώνιος Helikṓnios from Ἑλικών Helikṓn after Mount Helicon in Boeotia, central Greece.

Heliconia solomonensis has green inflorescences and flowers that open at night, which is typical of bat pollinated plants.

The Honduran white bat, Ectohylla alba, utilizes five species of Heliconia to make diurnal tent-shaped roosts.

[17] The neotropical disk-winged bat, Thyroptera tricolor, has suction disks on the wrists which allow it to cling to the smooth surfaces of the Heliconia leaves.

[18] Heliconias provide shelter for a diverse range of insects within their young rolled leaves and water-filled floral bracts.

In bracts containing small amounts of water, fly larvae and beetles are the dominant inhabitants.

Almost all species of Hispini beetles that use rolled leaves are obligate herbivores of plants of the order of Zingiberales, which includes Heliconia.

These beetles live in and feed from the rolled leaf, the stems, the inflorescences, or the unfurled mature leaves of the Heliconia plant.

In addition, these beetles deposit their eggs on the leaf surface, petioles of immature leaves, or in the bracts of the Heliconia.

The concurrent diversification of hummingbird-pollinated taxa in the order Zingiberales and the hummingbird family (Trochilidae: Phaethorninae) starting 18 million years ago supports the idea that these radiations have influenced one another through evolutionary time.

Hermits are the subfamily Phaethornithinae, consisting of the genera Anopetia, Eutoxeres, Glaucis, Phaethornis, Ramphodon, and Threnetes.