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| photos from citynoise.org |
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| photo from mgonlinestore.com |
The Coral Vine/Queen's Wreath or Antigonon leptopus is a much unappreciated plant. Nobody needs to attend to them as they thrive so easily just like grass. Left on its own, it will provide a covering for everything they can get their tendrils on -- your walls, your arches, your trees, your fences --- they are not picky. No wonder the MMDA has chosen this lowly vine to somehow prettify the metropolis.
Its flowers are heart-shaped and they come one after another in chain-like fashion. Hence, the name cadena de amor or Chain of Love. Pretty.
They used to have a Cadena de Amor Festival at the University of the Philippines where annually (before classes ended second semester) junior and senior students gathered linked together in masses of human chains by passing the garlands. It symbolised a turn-over of responsibilities and bequeathing of values and what the university stood for from the older to the younger. Links and continuity. But sad to say, the tradition is no longer there. It was last held in 1968.
