Blooming Friday - Week 3

Hey, today is Blooming Friday, Week 3 and the theme is Leading Ladies and Figurants. My Leading Lady today has to be the senduduk. Its scientific name is Melastoma Malabathricum. It is an evergreen shrub, sometimes regarded as a widespread weed in tropical forests. This plant has multiple medicinal and other uses. For example, if you are lost in the jungle and get a small cut or minor wound, you can pluck the leaves of this plant, crush it and use it to stop the bleeding. Some people put it into their mouths to chew before applying it onto the wound. In the old days, villagers used its dried branches to make brooms and used it to sweep their house compounds.

I bought this senduduk seedling at a nursery in Sungai Buloh for RM 5.00 a few months ago. It has started to bloom now, eventhough it is only about 3 ft tall. Their purple flowers are very pretty and looks something like your clematis flowers. Bangchik, my fellow Malaysian blogger of My Little Vegetable Garden has dedicated quite a number of posts about this plant. Like him, I too have fallen in love with this beautiful native inhabitant of our swamps and forest motherland. Besides purple, there are also those with white flowers.

Next comes the Figurants, the hardy plants with many flowers that have not stopped blooming. My choice would be my Cat Whiskers (Orthosiphon Stamineus) plant. This is also our native plant, my faithful bloomer. It is an everygreen woody shrub and blooms the whole year through. Mine produces white flowers now. It started with purple flowers during the first batch but it has been white flowers ever since. This plant is very very easy to grow. When its stems touches the ground, roots will form. It makes a very beautiful groundcover. Cat whiskers are also known for their medicinal value.

Well, does it ring a bell when you look at the header of my blog again? It is a picture of the leaves of the cat whiskers plant!

A biotech company in Malaysia has started commercial production of cat whiskers herbal tea bags using the leaves of this plant. Many people also started growing this plant for their leaves (fresh or dried) which is steeped with hot water and drank. Have you heard about it or tried this before?

This is my coral white vinca plant. It has not stopped flowering since the day I bought it and now producing seeds. I am planting some of its seeds to see whether all the plants will bear pure white flowers. Can you see a dragonfly resting on one of the blooms?

My portulaca grandiflora in shocking pink. Both buds will open as the day gets warmer or brighter.

This portulaca shares a container with my pomelo plant.
Its bud is half opened now.

This bud is going to open soon too.

Fully opened, the petals look like 5 hearts or love notes in pastel pink and white. I especially like the pointy stigma that makes it look like a 6-point star wand. Can you imagine a beauty queen carrying her victory wand?

Here are four friends. Usually the bi-colour ones outnumber the whites.

This is my marigold. Their heads are getting too large for their own good. They are now suffering from droopy head syndrome.

This is my Torenia Fournieri (bluewings or wishbone flower). I got this from a neighbour in Ipoh. It is growing wild lie a week in her garden. She just pulled out one of them and handed it to me in a plastic bag. I put some water into the bag and it travelled with me in a 2 and a half hour journey to my home. As I arrived home late at night, I only planted it in a pot the next day. I think it has the same survival instincts of a weed!

This is my heliconia flower. It requires minimum care and flowers the whole year through.

I came accross this little fella during my photography rounds. So I might as well include him in. He has just jumped from my bamboo plant to this palm leaf. He thinks he is very clever and hidden from my view since his whole body is in camourflage. I think he loves the leaves of my torch ginger. You should have seen the zig-zag patterns he has made to their leaves. I think he has a sharp cutter in his mouth. Anyway, I have no heart to kill him.

This time the cape honeysuckles are not blooming in big numbers. Maybe its because I have trimmed it almost bald. But I like this solo picture.

Finally, my bunga kantan, the torch ginger. I didn't cook it, so now it has opened up all its petals and showing me how happy it is.

I hope you like my parade of blooms this week and I wish you a wonderful weekend.

This is my entry for Blooming Friday. My grateful thanks to Katarina at Roses and Stuff for hosting Blooming Friday. To see what others have posted or to participate, click here.