Bunga Kesidang or Bread Flower

What smells like the lovely fragrant pandan leaves but is not pandan. Of course, this is the Bunga Kesidang, also known as Vallaris glabra or Bread Flowers. 

I love the fragrance of this plant - a very light and sweet smell. 

In our garden, we have this vine in a large dragon pot and have the vine going round and round the central stake. This plant can do much better in the ground but as we have limited space for growing climbers have to be contented with this plant in a pot!

 

 

The small white flowers .....

 

The flowers are magnets for insects, especially ants!

This is certainly one of the nicest plant to have in a garden and if you can get this plant, make sure to have it in your garden. My friend, Harmit Kaur, in Subang Jaya have this lovely plant in her garden with the Bunga Kesidang on one side of the walkway and the rangoon creeper on the other side! Lovely place!

Recently, I was told that there is this house in Siniawan, outside Kuching, with hundred-years old Bunga Kesidang vines that forms the bulk of the fence of the house and the whole neighbourhood is scented with the lovely fragrance of the flowers when the plants are in bloom! Unfortunately, recently, the owners' descendents started to cut away some of the old old vines to make way for concrete fence..... :-(

What a great pity!

The Chalice Vine

This is one nice plant that I like and which I planted as soon as my garden was ready. 

The plant is the Chalice vine or solandra longiflora and also variously known as Trumpet Plant or Flower. 

It did not do well in the open  and was eventually reduced to a single branch with one leaf ... and almost dead! Then while working in the garden, I stepped on it and virtually flattened it which was when I decided to move it into a small pot where it appeared to thrive. Several transplants later, it was some 1.56m tall and finally re-planted at the side of the house where we just built three sets of  wooden frames for climbers.

The various stages of the growing flower bud is interesting ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is great experience to see the flower buds growing day by day and the finally open just after sunset. The flowers are very lightly scented - not so noticeable when the plant is grown beside the other fragrant flowers in the garden.