Cigar Flower Overview
Cigar flower is a compact shrub with tight leaves and many small red flowers. Each flower is tube-shaped and about 1 inch long. The plant gets its common name from the flower's ash-colored tips, which make the blooms look a little like tiny lit cigars.
In Hawaii, cigar flower became valued as a lei flower in the mid-1800s. Its small size, bright red color and unusual tube shape made it useful for detailed lei work, especially for lei makers willing to spend extra time on careful stringing.
Flowers, Lei Use and Garden Value
Cigar flower is known scientifically as Cuphea ignea. The blooms are narrow rather than flat, which makes them different from many larger tropical flowers. A cigar flower lei takes patience because the flowers are not strung through the center of the tube. Instead, each small flower is speared across the middle.
This careful method makes the lei more time-consuming to create, but it also gives the finished lei a distinctive look. The flower's shape and color help explain why it became part of Hawaii's lei-making history.
In gardens, cigar flower can add red color in a smaller, more contained form than many large tropical plants. It works well where a compact flowering shrub is wanted. Related Hawaii flower pages include plumeria, pikake, tuberose and gardenia.
