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With love and passion, everyone can have a nice garden...Elaine Yim

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Count The Garden By The Flowers, Never By The Leaves That Fall.
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..... Author unknown.

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Malaysian Flora USDA Zone 11
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Sunday, February 26, 2012

Strobilanthes hamiltoniana - India Blue Bell or Chinese Rain Bell?


Do you think these flowers look like Indian blue bells or Chinese rain bells?

This is a plant with 4 scientific names and one incorrect name.





Scientific name:  Strobilanthes hamiltoniana
Synonym: Strobilanthes colorata, Stobilanthes flaccidifolia, Diflugossa colorata, Goldfussia colorata

Incorrectly applied named: Strobilanthes cusia

Common names: India Blue Bell, Chinese Rain Bell, Assam Indigo, Pink Strobilanthes, Vein Leaf Acanthus
Chinese name: 叉花草 (cha hua cao - forked/branched flowering plant)
Family: Acanthaceae

Origin: Himalayan region of India, Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar
  Category: Herbaceous perennial shrub
 Photo taken at: The rooftop Secret Garden of 1-Utama


Strobilanthes is derived from the Latin words "strobilos" meaning cone and "anthos" meaning flower or shoot.

Strobilanthes hamiltoniana plants have smooth green leaves that point downwards while the herbaceous stems are arched. The flowers which hang solitary on each node are pale purple and bell shaped. They droop downwards, one by one, each separate and at a distance from the one another in loose, highly branched panicles up to 30cm long. The shrub is about 5-6ft (0.5-1.5m) tall.

The display of flowers is especially beautiful after the rain. Water droplets that collect on the unopened buds look like clear crystal beads hanging in the mid-air.

A very showy plant that looks better in real life than in photos.

Strobilanthes hamiltoniana - India Blue Bell or Chinese Rain Bell”, a copyrighted post, was written for My Nice Garden blog by Autumn Belle @ http://www.mynicegarden.com/ on February 26th, 2012.


While searching the web for Strobilanthes hamiltoniana, I find that there is very little information on this species. However, a search under will lead to many results. A similar looking plant is classified as S. cusia and this includes sites like Top TropicalsDave's Garden and Flowers of India.

There is an article at the STG Community Blog website (a magazine for sub-tropical gardening in Australia) that:
1. This plant is commonly mistaken for S. cusia, another species which is widely cultivated in China as a medicinal and dye plant.
2. They have a picture of the real S. cusia
3. In Australia, S. hamiltoniana can be grown in the humid tropics of northern Queensland and the frost free warm temperate New South Wales.


According to Flora of China, S. hamiltoniana is native to the forests on the mountain slopes (800-2000m) of Bhutan, India, Myanmar and Nepal.

HOW TO GROW
You can also find information about S. hamiltoniana in page 133 of the book "Tropical Horticulture and Gardening" (click here), by Dr. Francis SP Ng. He describes it as "an erect herb, to 1.5m tall, flowering in loose terminal branched inflorescences; the flowers tubular and hanging downwards. Grow in full or partial sun. Propagate by cuttings. Origin: India."



You can find S. hamiltoniana plants at the rooftop Secret Garden of 1-Utama. It is planted near an artificial pond filled with Water Hyssop plants. There by the side of the pond, it shares a place with an Australian willow tree and a row of Star Calathea plants.

Ami of Southeast Florida Garden Evolvement Blog has a plant in her garden. You can view here blog post here.


Remember my post, "Tawny Coaster Butterflies Mating at the Rooftop Secret Garden of 1-Utama"? Well, in this Nov 2011 post, I wrote about the courtship of 2 tawny coaster butterflies that mated successfully.

On a cool morning of end January 2012, at the same area/zone, I found this newly emerged tawny coaster butterfly with crumpled wings perched on an inflorescence stalk of the S. hamiltoniana. It was probably drying its wings.


Have you seen a butterfly drying its wings?

Blogger Tips:
You can now add a Reply Button to your comments. This feature is called "threaded commenting". I have just enabled mine today. Here's how:
1. From your blogger Dashboard, select Settings and Site Feed. Set your feed to "Full"
2. Under Settings menu, select Comments - set your comment form to "Embedded"

You can read more at Blogger Help by clicking here.

This is my entry for Today's Flowers # 183, a meme which opens every Sunday, 2pm GMT. My grateful thanks to Today's Flowers team members; Luiz Santili Jr, Denise in Virginia, Laerte Pupo and Sandy Carlson. To participate and view other gorgeous flowers around the world, click here

33 comments:

  1. whatever the name the flower looks pretty and a lovely butterfly amazing photo..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This flower is even prettier in real life. My camera can't do justice to its beauty.

      Delete
  2. No to teraz już wiem. Kwiatuszki są bardzo ładne, a motyla suszącego swoje skrzydełka jeszcze nie widziałam. Pozdrawiam. ***Well, now I know. Flowers are very nice, and a butterfly drying its wings have not yet seen. Yours.

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  3. It is a pretty and delicate looking flower. Like the butterfly photos also.
    Cher Sunray Gardens

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cher, the petals are soft and thin, hence delicate is the word :D

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  4. Lovely flower and your closeups are beautiful!
    Great capture too of the butterfly!

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    Replies
    1. Carletta, thanks! I'm glad you like this butterfl too.

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  5. Replies
    1. Junie, the butterfly, the delicate flowers and the bush... Oh, what a wonderful piece of nature's art!

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  6. I love your photos but i don't like these kind of plants, dont get me wrong ha. It looks more like foliage than flowers, which are so scattered in space. But it looks very healthy in Utama. It's origin seems to be cold climes, so maybe it was already acclimatized so long to thrive well in KL.

    Thanks for putting those instructions to put the Reply link, i actually asked Jacqui how to do it, but haven't replied. It seems like you subliminally heared my dilemma and posted them here!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Andrea, you are now getting more and more IT savy!

      Delete
  7. By whatever name it goes, its such a pretty & delicate flower :) The unopen flower buds look so much like dainty earrings...very pretty!

    Oh, thanks for info on 'reply' button in comments...hehe, I've only just recently discovered how to display icons like Blotanical.com etc in my site, all thanks to youtube! Prior to that I was 'dangerously' tinkering with the html of my template.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No sweat, do take your time to learn the ropes. However, please be careful when tempering with the html codes of your template. Always remember to back up your blog and your template before "setting sail" on your voyages of adventures ;-)

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  8. Gorgeous photos Autumn Belle! That Strobilanthes is stunning!

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    Replies
    1. I do think that it is one of the most beautiful bush I have seen so far.

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  9. What beautiful pink bell blooms. I imagine the bees love them too. The picture with the water drops is just the prettiest! Have a terrific week.

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    Replies
    1. Water drops on the buds... raindrops falling on my head...

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  10. A spot of colour amongst the greens, I like it!

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  11. Such a pretty flower. Never heard about this name before!
    Nice shot on butterflies!

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    Replies
    1. I love the way the flowers dangle down one by one like a baby cot carousel.

      Delete
  12. I've never seen this plant before! Lovely flowers, I just wish they were bigger. Thanks for introducing it to your readers.

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    Replies
    1. This plant will look nice in your big garden.☺

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  13. Cute, yeah. But too bad, I have not seen this cute plant anywhere else except at 1U.

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  14. Autumn Belle: Thank you so much to leave the comments at my blog to correct the plant name! I have update my post accordingly. This plant is growing bigger in my garden, now I am afraid that I did not leave enough space for her... Thank you again, Ami

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Amy, I have been thinking of you lately ;-)
      I have also added the link for other readers to view your lovely Chinese Bell.

      Delete
  15. I wanted to comment on the Cattails but does not allow me to enter anything under the post! I hope it is only for that one post. So, I am here instead. I was going to say that I thought the cattails was the same plant as Love-lies- a bleeding (Amaranthus caudatus ), which is also called pendant amaranth, tassel flower, velvet flower, foxtail amaranth. I see now that they are different. Although on first glance they both have cattails - I think the amaranth cattail is made of tiny seeds. I'll have to look closely the next time I come across Love-lies-a bleeding

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  16. Mom on Blog, thank you very much for taking the extra trouble to leave a comment in my blog. I have copied your comments and pasted to the appropriate post.

    I have also since changed the comment form placement. I guess I still can't use blogger's new feature - the Reply Button :(

    ReplyDelete

Words are like the voice of the heart... Confucius

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