Torch Ginger Etlingera elatior - Full Bloom

Now my torch ginger flower is fully opened so I took the opportunity to photograph it.

This post is dedicated to Ms Helen of My Rustic Bajan Garden for being the first commenter of my previous post, Torch Ginger Etlingera elatior - Pink & White.

According to wikipedia, Etlingera elatior or Torch Ginger is also known as Ginger Flower, Red Ginger Lily, Torch Lily, Wild Ginger, Combrang, Bunga Siantan, Philippine Wax Flower, Xiang Bao Jiaing, Indonesian Tall Ginger, Boca de Dragón, Rose de Porcelaine and Porcelain Rose. In Malaysia, we call it bunga kantan.

We usually cut off the flowers during the budding stage for use in cooking, so they 'disappear' before they can fully open.

The numerous pink 'petals' are actually the bracts. The real flower is the red cone shaped scales which appear on the outside circumference of the flower.

Can you see the red flowers? You shoud be able to see at least 2 obvious flowers here.

This a cut cross-section of the flower bud that we use in nyonya or peranakan cooking. It is also used to cook assam laksa (Malay style) and tom yam (Thai style). Some dishes include:

a) Thai tom yam soup - finely chopped as garnishing or whole flower bud is crushed and cooked
b) Assam laksa - as garnishing or crushed and cooked.
c) Perut ikan (pickled fish tripe soup)
d) Deep fried chicken (e.g. boxing chicken) - finely chopped flower bud is used as marinade
e) Rojak (a mixed fruits and vegetable dish) - as garnishing

To view other Macro Monday posts or to participate, please click here.

Torch Ginger Etlingera elatior - Pink & White

Botanical name: Etlingera elatior

Family: Zingiberaceae (ginger family)

Common name: Torch ginger, wax flower, porcelain flower, bunga kantan,

Origin: Indonesia and Malaysia

This genus is named after the German botanist Andreas Ernst Etlinger.

In Latin, elatior means 'taller'.

Synonyms: Phaeomeria imperialis Lindl., Phaeomeria magnifica K. Schum, Nicolaia speciosa Horan.

In Malaysia, we call it bunga kantan. Other malay/Indonesian names include bunga bakung api, mawar porselen, bunga lilin Filipina and obor raja.

I'd like to dedicated this post and the exotic flower to Ms Noelle (azplantlady) of Plant Tips And Guidelines For The Desert Garden, who was the first commenter of my previous post, Wordless Wednesday - Orchids.

This is my belle femme (beautiful lady in French), my permaisuri (Queen in malay). No tropical garden is complete without this exotic, spectacular beauty. The flowers are showy and inflorescent, good as cut flowers and they are also edible! This is a great choice for a herb & spice garden.

Grown from an undergrown rhizome, an adult plant can reach 15 - 20 ft. The flowers which appear from the ground can reach a height of 2 ft. In my garden, land is limited. This plant occupies a significant portion of my plot. I have never regretted planted it.

We use the bud for cooking laksa, nasi kerabu (Kelantanese style rice) and tom yam.

Do you have another cooking stlye to share with us?

My bella signora (beauty in Italian)

Mine is pink. There are also the deep pink and snow white versions.

This white torch ginger is grown at The Secret Garden of 1-Utama.

It is my first time of seeing a white torch ginger.

I am not sure whether it can be used to cook laksa but it certainly is gorgeous.

Hi, I'm Snow White, waiting for my Prince Charming to give me my 'Kiss of Life'. When he asks me for my hand, I'll marry him. I'll be promoted to Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Tropical Rainforest Malaysia. Later, One day, I'll be Queen and we shall live happily ever after.

Individual flowers appear between the pine cone like scales above the waxy bracts. In this picture it looks pale yellow.

The white torch ginger is nicknamed "Thai Queen" and it can be found in Southern Thailand. Are you growing this white version?

I have never seen this seedling at any nursery before. If anyone knows where to get the white kantan, do let me know. From google search, I find that some gardeners are growing it from seeds obtained from ebay.com.

It makes a wonderful landscaping plant.

The pink torch ginger is a common plant found in tropical Malaysia. You can see in along the roads in villages, jungle fringes and it grows wild in our rainforest jungles.

My first experience in growing the bunga kantan can be found here in my June 19 post.

I'm sorry for the late posting due to my busy schedule.

Wishing you all a great and wonderful weekend.

To all my American Friends,

HAPPY THANGSGIVING !

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

Fertilizer Friday will resume next week. My grateful thanks to Tootsie at Tootsie Time for hosting Fertilizer Friday.

This is also my entry for Today's Flowers #68. My grateful thanks to the TF folks: Santilli, Denise, Pupo and Valkyrien for hosting Today's Flowers. To participate or view other floral displays around the world, click here.

Wordless Wednesday - Orchids

This post is dedicated to Ms Kiki of Awake With Charm & Spirit who was the first commenter for my previous post, Honest Scrap Award for My Nice Garden.

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Photographs taken by Autumn Belle at The Secret Garden of 1-Utama

Grateful thanks to Dr. Francis Ng of The Secret Garden of 1-Utama.

You can visit Dr. Francis Ng's blog here.

To view other WW posts or to participate, please click here.

Butterfly Pea Clitoria Ternatea

My post today is about Butterfly pea flowers.

Earlier in the day today, I was feeling very brave. So I tried meddling with the HTML code of my blog template. Halfway through, it hanged. When I restarted my computer, I found that I was unable to access my blog! Google has listed my blog as a spam blog and quarantine it. Now I don't know when they will return it back to me. Hah, me a spam blogger? No way! How I wish I have the IT intelligence of a spammer. These people are geniuses. Luckily, luckily, dear sweet Joanne of Joanne's Cottage Garden had thought me to use a test blog to try out these 'stunts' , otherwise if My Nice Garden disappears, I don't know what to do next. I don't even know how to backup my blog. I only know how to backup my template. Please be warned. This HTML code thing is scary stuff.

First, I'd like to dedicated this post and the blue plumbago flowers to Ms Lona of A Hocking Hills' Garden, who was the first commenter of my previous post, Wordless Wednesday - Rangoon Creeper. The plumbago flowers are from my garden and it is grown by yours truly.

Next, I have another bunch of plumbagos for Ms Kiki of Awake With Charm & Spirit. Today, I am a blue inspired blogger, participating in her Blue Essence Invitation.

Botanical name: Clitoria ternatea

Family: Fabaceae

Common name: Butterfly Pea, Asian Pigeonwings, Blue Pea

Origin: tropical equatorial Asia

Malay name: bunga telang

When you look at the shape of the flowers, I'm sure you can guess how the latin name for the genus, 'clitoria' came about.

"Ternatea", the name of the species, comes from Ternate, a location in Indonesia.

The solidary flowers are indigo with a patch of white and light yellow towards the centre.

This perennial climber blooms the whole year through. Propagation is by seeds and cuttings. Growing from seeds, it is expected that the plant can bloom in 6 weeks. This plant need a rich, moist soil with full sun to partial shade. It tends to get leggy quickly, so pinching helps to keep it bushy. When growing from seeds, it is advisable to soak the seeds overnight in water before sowing. Seeds will germinated in 1-2 weeks. Cuttings root easily in moist sand or vermiculite.



This plant can be grown as an ornamental, or trained on an arbor or chain link fence. It also look great on a hanging basket. I am not sure if the guys will get excited looking at the flowers but these flowers are a favourite food for butterflies. This plant is not invasive.

This is the model for today's outdoor photo shoot. This plant was grown by the lady who sells cut fruits at the stall under the tree. Can you see the owner's wooden table ? She is just going to set up her stall this morning. This plant has been grown from seed. She call it the blue flower plant. Actually these 2 plants are growing from a hole in the middle of the roadside concrete pavement. To train this climber, the lady had used a string to tie the branches to the small tree. Now it looks like the butterfly pea plant is hugging the tree.

This is how the vine, flower, seed and ripe seed pod looks like at close-up. It seems that the young seed pods are edible.

In Thailand, butterfly pea extract is used in hair shampoos for the prevention of falling hair, and to make the hair thicker and more shiny.

Owing to the flower's similarity to a female body part, this plant was used traditionally to cure sexual ailments, like infertility, gonorrhea, to control menstrual discharge, as well as an aphrodisiac. (Information obtained from Wikipedia)

In Malaysia, the flowers are used as a food colouring. The flowers are pounded to extract the juice to get the blue colour. It is used in peranakan (Straits-born Chinese/ Baba Nyonya) cooking to make pulut tai-tai or blue glutinous rice cakes. A tai-tai is a chinese word for a wealthy man's wife who does not need to work or earn money but has lots of leisure and money to spend. This dessert is a peranakan wedding specialty. The blue stain comes from the flower. The cakes are usually served with kaya (coconut egg jam). Kaya is a jam or sandwich spread made from coconut milk and eggs, flavoured with pandan leaves and sweetened with sugar. We also apply kaya on toast.

Please click here for the pulut tai-tai and here for kaya recipes from kuali.com

Malay dishes using this flower include kuih tekan (quite similar to pulut tai-tai) and nasi kerabu Kelantan (blue Kelantanese styled rice).

It is also used to make nyonya chang (glutinous rice dumplings). The recipe is here.

In Thailand, it is used to make a sweet syrupy blue drink called nam dok anchan. If you add some lime juice to the blue solution, it will magically turn to purple!

In Burma the flowers are used as food where they are often dipped in batter and fried.

Now, my final blue picture for today. In Malaysia, secondary school girls wear blue uniforms to school. The sky above is quite clear and blue too. Look at the sign board here. Nowadays, school children are so lucky. They even motivate you to go to school. During my time, if we absent ourselves without a valid reason or play truant, we will get a spanking or canning, sometimes both, from the school teacher as well as our parents.

Until then, have a wonderful weekend!

This is my entry for Blooming Friday, 3rd Week of November. My grateful thanks to Katarina at Roses and Stuff for hosting Blooming Friday. To see what others have posted or to participate, click here.

This is also my entry for Fertilizer Friday. My grateful thanks to Tootsie at Tootsie Time for hosting Fertilizer Friday. To see what others have posted or to participate, visit here.

This is also my entry for Today's Flowers #67. My grateful thanks to the TF folks: Santilli, Denise, Pupo and Valkyrien for hosting Today's Flowers. To participate or view other floral displays around the world, click here.

P/S: Update to my post.

1. My blogger friend Ms Andrea, a Horticulturist (Postharvest Physiology) from the Philippines has a similar flower that looks like the double flowering clitoria ternatea. Her post "Flowers With Interesting Names" dated November 18th and the link is here. Can you, my dear readers help her to identify /verify the plant? Thanks a gazillion! She also has a pale purple similar looking flower but it actually has a different botanic name, "Centrosema pubescens".

2. Kanak Hagjer of Terra Farmer has a picture of the double-petaled variety of the butterfly pea in her lates post dated November 26th, "The Blues Don't Get Me Down". Please click here to view the flower.

3. My New Straits Times article about this plant "Flowers to Dye For" dated 19 June 2010 is here. 

Quisqualis indica, The Rangoon Creeper - Wordless Wednesday

This post is dedicated to Ms Eileen of Traveling with Eileen who was the first commenter of my previous post "The Yellow Cassia Trees of KLCC Park."

Botanical name: Quisqualis indica

Family: Combretaceae

Common name: Rangoon Creeper, Burma Creeper, Chinese Honeysuckle, Drunken Sailor,

Bunga Akar Dani, Bunga Setanduk

Origin: Burma, Peninsular Malaysia, New Guinea, and the Philippines

Photographs taken by Autumn Belle at The Secret Garden of 1-Utama

Grateful thanks to Dr. Francis Ng of The Secret Garden of 1-Utama. You can visit Dr. Francis Ng's blog here.

To view other WW posts or to participate, please click here.

The Yellow Cassia Trees of KLCC Park

* Scientific name: Senna spectabilis

Synonym: Cassia spectabilis, Senna macranthera

Family: Fabaceae (Leguminosae)

Common name: Cassia, Scented Shower

Origin: Tropical America

* Thanks to Dr. Francis Ng, who pointed out to me that the ID of this plant is most likely Cassia spectabilis, I have updated my post accordingly.

Information sourced from http://www.toptropicals.com/:-

Cassia spectabilis is:

One of the most spectacular trees. Fast growing small to medium size tree with architectural crown structure and narrow pointed leaves that make this plant stand out from other cassias/sennas. Showy yellow flowers are scented and attract butterflies. The flowers come in big clusters and when the tree is in full bloom (Spring to Fall), the view is spectacular, hence the name. This plant looks very pretty as a container specimen or as a separately standing tree for a small yard. Prefers soils that are deep, moist and sandy but will tolerate calcareous soils. The rare plant doesn't exist in a wild anymore and can be found only in cultivation. The seeds of Cassia spectabilis are a potential source of commercial gum.

I found these beautiful yellow cassia trees at KLCC Park during my visit in October 2009. It was planted a short distance away from the Elevated Bridge.

At the time of posting, I am still unable to locate a signage that gives the details of this tree.

As with many plants in Malaysia, it is an evergreen small tree that blooms the whole year through. Malaysia is situated just above the Equator and our climate is hot and humid with plenty of sunshine and rainfall. Average day temperatures are 35 C and night around 25 C.

This is how the tree look like from afar.

Here is another yellow cassia tree planted at the Children's Pool area.

Scientific name: Cassia fistula

Family: Fabaceae (Leguminosae)

Common name: Golden Shower Tree or Indian Laburnum

Origin: Sri Lanka and India

Information source: Tropical Horticulture and Gardening Book by Dr. Francis SP Ng

A small to medium-sized tree, 5-10m tall, bearing pendent inflorescenses on the larger branches. In its native countries, flowering occurs once a year in the dry season, when the crowns are bare of leaves. In the humid tropics, a full flowering display is uncommon, but some trees manage to flower twice a year and some even produce a trickle of flowers throughout the year. Grow in full sun. Propagate by seeds.

The Cassia fistula is also another small tree with pretty cream yellow flowers and long bean pods where the seeds are stored. It provides some shade at the children pool area at KLCC Park.

Do visit malaysian-explorer.com's Suria KLCC's page for quick facts and interesting information about KLCC.

Today's post is dedicated to The Stopwatch Gardener, my first commenter for the Erythrina Glauca, The Red Flower Tree post.

This post is my entry for Mellow Yellow Monday # 43. My grateful thanks to Drowsey Monkey for hosting this fun site. To participate or to view other MYM posts around the world, please click here.

Erythrina fusca, The Red Flower Tree

This post is dedicated to Ms Tatyana of My Secret Garden for being the first commenter of my previous post "Wordless Wednesday - Crinum Lily".

Scientific name: Erythrina fusca,

Synonym: Erythrina glauca (according to Trees For Life Malaysia website)

Common name: Indian Coral Tree, Tiger's Claw, Cape Kaffirboom, Gallito, Coral bean, Bois immortelle, Bucayo

Family: Fabaceae / Leguminosae / Papilionaceae

Category: Ever-flowering desiduous small tree

Native plant of: Malaysia, India, Thailand and the Pacific Islands.

They grow wild along sandy beaches and riversides. Inland, they are cultivated as ornamental shade trees.

Our local name for this plant is dedap merah. I was initially very much attracted to the beautiful bright red flowers of this tree. I love red because it is very auspicious and brings me good luck. It took me a long long time to find out the name of this plant. Actually, my knowledge of trees is very limited. I am so very happy that finally I have unveiled the mystery of this tree. It is actually a small tree. Under the right conditions, it can grow to a height of 60 ft.

The flowers are large, bright red and have a claw-like shape. Leaves are alternate, compound, with three heart-shaped leaflets. The foliage is a shiny dark green colour. The base of the petiole is swollen and cylindrical.

This deciduous tree has a spiny bark. It is a species of flowering tree in the legume family. The dark brown seeds are stored in bean shaped pods that measure up to 20cm (8in). I notice that when it is growing well, the branches are spread out like an umbrella. When it is blooming with striking red flowers, it is indeed a spectacular sight amidst the clear blue sky. When the flowers fade and petals fall to the ground, it will look like spent red fire cracker papers strewn all over the ground. Just like Chinese New Year season. Very auspicious!

Here, in Malaysia, we can find a lot of these trees planted by property developers and city councils at housing estates, public parks and walkways.

There are some planted near the entrance to Suria KLCC, Kuala Lumpur at the base of the Petronas Twin Towers and overlooking KLCC Park. There are sidewalk cafes here such as Starbucks and Coffee Bean where you can enjoy your cuppa in the outdoors and admire the greenery and scenery of KLCC Park and surrounding skyscrappers.

We have a local malay saying "Bunga dedap" which means a person with good looks but without good manners and who can't seem to run the household properly. Like the red flower that is very beautiful but without any scent.

Have you seen this plant in your area?

Update:

1. Some of the trees planted along public roads and walkways in the Klang Valley had to be felled by City Hall due to termites infestation.
2. My article about this tree appeared in the New Straits Times Press on August 13th, 2010. The link is here.

This is my entry for Blooming Friday, 2nd Week of November. The theme today is "Winter time storage". My grateful thanks to Katarina at Roses and Stuff for hosting Blooming Friday. To see what others have posted or to participate, click here.

This is also my entry for Fertilizer Friday. My grateful thanks to Tootsie at Tootsie Time for hosting Fertilizer Friday. To see what others have posted or to participate, visit here.

This is also my entry for Today's Flowers #66. My grateful thanks to the TF folks: Santilli, Denise, Pupo and Valkyrien for hosting Today's Flowers. To participate or view other floral displays around the world, click here.

This is also my entry for Ruby Tuesday. To view what others have for red today, click here.