White Ginger

Tropical storm again in these islands. The rains are once more doing their job of getting the dust off the air, the dirt off the streets, and gifting us with a whiff of negative ions. What's more, the White Ginger flowers are only happy to come out in wet weather.

Known locally as the Camia, its delicate white petals are extraordinarily ambrosial. I included the blurry shot for you to imagine it giving off its perfume.

Here's how i got my stash today: husband and i went to market together. In the fish section of all places, i smell something pleasant. I look down and i see a little girl hawking the last of her garlands to me so that she may have money to buy snacks for school tomorrow. I was only too glad to oblige. Helping a kid earn while combating fish smells, at the same time having the senses of touch and smell gratified. Good stuff.

In Cuba, the Camia is known as the Mariposa Blanca or White Butterfly Flower. I can imagine women in the olden days donning the blooms as perfume. Today, one need only go to their favorite beauty supply outlets to get lotions and colognes in variants of this scent.

La Hoya Carnosa

My fingers once squeezed these fleshy flowers and leaves out of sheer delight. Its waxy and leathery feel made it seem unreal, like plastic. Do you also have that compulsion, to touch and pinch flowers and plants to find out if they are real or fake? My mother, a consummate gardener once caught me doing just that and reprimanded me by pinching my butt. Not that i did not appreciate the beauty of the plant -- i just wanted confirmation.

What also struck me about the flowers were the stars in the middle which i tried to delicately extract so that i could pin them to my ear lobes as earrings. I wish i had this climbing on my porch now. We used to have it on trellis in our garage back in the province. Come to think of it, i have not seen such plants for a long, long time now.

• More known as the Wax plant or Porcelain flower, the Hoya as my mother called it (she liked to familiarize herself with scientific names ) is found to be an air purifier around the house.

Pampas Practical Joke

If you happen to be driving by a grass field you won't miss the Pampas, the tall fluffy cottony feather dusters.

As a little girl i fell victim to some meany's practical joke. The kid appeared to me to be nibbling at the stalk of this grass and enticed me to try it out to taste the 'sweet nectar" if i did (a Garden of Eden moment, if you will). The moment i pursed my lips on a stalk, he pulled the stalk end, with me ending up with a mouthful of the flowers' fuzzy parts. I almost cried. Such is my association with the pampas grass. Needless to say, my eyes were opened. 

Lady of the Night

Picture yourself in a garden beneath the stars. The house beside the garden is ancient but homey. The cicadas' sweet song reaches your ears while the soft breeze has a gift for you. It is the captivating scent of the dama de noche, those fragile white flowers which release their powerful fragrance at night. Though there is no one there but you, you do not feel lonely. You feel nurtured and rested.

Every single night you come out again and again to catch the magical mystery of why the fragrance is available only at nighttime.

Read the legend of the dama de noche.

Edible Katuray

Katuray flowers are rarely found in Manila markets. If you want to purchase them for your salad or as a side dish, you would have to go to the provinces such as Bulacan, Pangasinan, and Ilocos. Or perhaps at some weekend organic market.

These flowers are also called Hummingbird Tree /Corkwood Tree or Wisteria Tree flowers. Since they resemble petite birds alit on the tree i think it would be best to go by Hummingbird Tree flowers. If i had a big yard i would have this planted in it. Not only is its flowers edible, its roots, bark, and leaves are all useful.

So if perchance you find these edible blooms, go make yourself a salade fleur. It may relieve you of your headache, cough and colds.

Angel's Trumpets

photo from exoticgarden.com

What lovely ladies these flowers are. They look fabulous in their flowing gowns of yellow whose hems seem to channel Marilyn Monroe's photo where her pendulous hems were lifted by wafts of air coming from the subway. One can almost sense that had they been personified, they are stepping out for a night of ballroom dancing. 

But let not these dainties fool you. They possess a power so strong that its ingestion can send you to a different plane. I remember thrill-seekers in Baguio would smoke these campanilla as they call it and get themselves high.

An overdose causes death as every part of this plant, beautiful as it is, is poisonous. Just look. Don't touch.

Chain of Love

photos from citynoise.org

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.