Saluting every life with a flower each day! Flowers are soul of the planet, blooming to play music with silent notes. Smile at them as they are sweet hearted!! Only the photographs taken by me are uplinked. I lean heavily to http://www.flowersofindia for flower identification and descriptions. Looking forward to valuable comments and suggestions.
The Cat's claw is a woody vine. The name comes from the tripartite, hooked tendrils resembling an animal's claw that enable the vine to adhere to the bark and other surfaces. The stems produce adventitious roots to anchor them tightly to vertical surfaces. The 5 to 10 cm long, tubular flowers have five lobes and are bright yellow with red-orange lines in the throat. This vine is splendidly flowering in Mysore just outside District Magistrate Office. I took this photo in the morning of 11th September, 2011, while on a flower hunt!
The Virginia spiderwort or Lady's tears is a herbaceous plant found mainly in US with alternate, single leaves on tubular stem. It is cultivated as a garden plant in colder parts of India. Flowers are blue, purple to pinkish red with 3 petals, which are broadly ovate. In the centre, there are 6 erect yellow stamens. The flower closes by mid day. This plant is maintained in a pot at Silkworm Satellite Breeding Station, Coonoor, a unit of Central Silk Board. This photograph was taken on the wet morning of 1st December, 2010.
Penstemon means Five stamens. The plant is native to American continents. This is a beautiful tall slender plant with light pinkish flowers. These elegant, semi-evergreen perennials are valued for their spires of tubular foxglove like flowers in white and shadows of pink, red and purple. I got attracted to this flower in Conoor, while attending a workshop. They were planted in a bed, with abundance of flowers calling every ones attention! I took this photograph on 3rd December, 2010.
Camellia is native to China. It is a small tree or shrub. The youngest branches branches are purplish-brown, becoming greyish brown as they age. The alternate leathery leaves are dark greeen on the top and paler on the underside. The flowers are very beautiful, looking like roses. The colour vary from red to pink to white, sometimes having multi-coloured stripes or specks. The stamens are bringht yellow in colour. This is usually planted as borders or as formation of hedges. These plants are seen in many gardens of Ooty and Coonoor. I took this photograph on 3rd December, 2010, while attending a workshop in Conoor.
Ixora is a common flowering shrub native to South India and Srilanka. It is a dense multi branched ever green shrub. The glossy, leathery. oblong leaves about 10 cm long are carried in opposite pairs on stem. Small tubular, scarlet flowers in dense rounded clusters are produced year long. It comes in a variety of colours. From my childhood i have been curiously observing this flower as it was available in plenty all around me. This flower was photographed on 19th August 2011 in the CSRTI, Mysore campus.
The sensitive plant or touch-me-not is a wonderful and sensitive plant found across the tropical world. Its fern like leaves close up and droop when touched and re-open within minutes. The stem is slender and prickly. Leaves are bipinnae, stalked pale pink or purple flower heads arise from the leaf axils. The small fluffy, ball shaped flowers on bloom in plenty is a wonderful sight! The round to ovoid heads are 8-10 mm in diameter. As children me and my sisters were very curious to touch these plants to see the leaves folding. Even i have seen my daughter doing the same. In Mysore also they are plenty all around and i took this photograph on 31st August, 2011 in the campus of CSRTI, Mysore.
Canon ball tree is a large deciduous tropical tree growing upto 20 m high. It is indigenous to Amazon rain forests. There is mention about this plant in Indian scripts many thousands years before. It flowers in recemes which originate from the bark. It bears fragrant yellow reddish and pink flowers with unusual shape. This is used to offer Puja in Shiv temples in India and has special significance in Budhist culture in Srilanka. Few months before my research colleague took me to a temple in anticipation of some flowers in this tree but during the season it had not flowered yet. But on 1st December, 2011 i incidently entered into the park near the Mysore palace and to my delight, the tree was bearing bunches of flowers. My cameras smiled on them and and i got many snaps of it. When i told about it, my friend was feeling very happy to see it in my postings. So it is for my friend ....
