Summer whites

Our tropical spring is very short and so very soon the air became warm and then all at once rather very hot. As a blessing, the heat allowed the blossoming of the summer whites, as I love to call them, the jasmine varieties…. This year they were in full bloom very early with the onset of heat, even before the real summer set in. So against the fresh, lovely, soothing, new green leaves, the white looked stark and amazing. The jasmines and jasmine like lilies seemed to compete in their displays. The lily buds

were hidden inside the bunch and came out one after the other and filled to form a beautiful bouquet. The jasmine tree blossomed heavily and the night air was filled with its fragrance. It was so alluring, we brought it inside the home, it kept on blooming for days even inside. And its enchanting fragrance truly filled the entire room overnight, as if the open rooms were sprayed with a jasmine aroma. How powerful these tiny flowers are! Not all trees flowered, but the flowers that came, came quickly and filled the plant. And at similar times also came the burst of the white bougainvilleas. And so I thought of aligning them all for a perfect green and white summer colour scheme. Hope you enjoy…..

A day's flower and its unique message....

This looks like an orchid group flower, that flowered for the first time in our garden, this late spring. They were all bright yellow and open, featherweight and looked were here to stay like the orchids. But as the day passed from morning to noon, I saw that the flowers were curling up, I was surprized, and felt may be something was wrong. 

I had brought them indoors as they looked so bright. Then, I noticed they curled up more by the day, and  by night they twisted and more and saw that a specific measured closure was taking place with time. By next day each curled more and tightened more and more, the colour changed brown and were ready to fall off, and soon fell off, as a tight dark brown tiny piece. I literally needed to follow each one to confirm that it was a definite cycle that was occuring with time, when they started to bud and bloom again grow to the full flower then curl up and die over the next day, and the next and so on and so forth.  It was like an amazing movie I was watching.  Wow, then I realized these were those unique one day flowers. And I was watching an an entire cycle of differentiation, growth and cell death in real time! 

Yes, we know this earth can be dry and barren without water, and plants wither away in the heat and then flourish under rain as the water cycle tells us. But look at this, by morning another set of buds came up, swelled like balloons and blossomed into a full flower, by the day, curling up by the evening, tightening by night and fall off by morning. May be just because the flowers give such an aesthetic sense of beauty and touch our feelings, a sense of losing them overnight, was not an easy thing. It gave a thought of loss and separation, and literally was walking me through the cycle of life. Although seasonal flowers come and go, they too appeal, but this one day flower, gave a feeling of experiencing death and then life at the same time, seeing buds come up and budding into new flowers was like a new creation overnight after the end of one cycle. So imagine, how thought provoking these small flowers, turned out to be. I was speechless and simply gazed at them and kept on following them through. 

Flowers are the reproductive organs and are required for the plant survival through the seed that grow to new plants, for those of them who depend on propagation through fertilization as this one seemed to be, this is the job of the flowers, others can propagate by bulbs. Flowers come and go, and attract both us and pollinators to enhance pollination, by self or cross germination,  they propagate seeds while the fruits come as a by product, to protect the seeds, yet help us in nutrition. This is in all theory and practice correct, right?

Yet, seeing the flowers fall off reminded me of the death pathway of apoptosis, which in Greek means to fall off, like leaves falling off a tree.  It was something one could see clearly see here, as the end product of the dead curled dry flower literally fell off in the morning, such was this its unique one day flowers. It stirred my mind so much, my gaze took me deep inside the cell and also outside into the greater sense of creation all around us. 

How genetically different the cycle of life can be for different life forms around us. It took me back to the pages of my Cell Biology book, once again. How active could it's survival, differentiation and death pathways be and How many more genes were active for these pathways to be working at the same time and so fast? I was struck in awe, kept following the plant for a new cycle each day for the whole next week and kept thinking and thinking….may be inside these tiny flowers it was like a factory filled with machineries working day in day out, to activate the survival-differentiation-death machinery one by one or may be at the same time, we would need to evaluate......

They became

brown like the barren earth after the vegetation withers.Then, they fell off the green plant as the new budding already started with perfect timing, as if a manager was managing the whole affair, very accurately switching on and off those required genes for life again. Amazing are wonders of Creation!! 

Although it was only a tiny flower, yet it send its messages clear, of the cycle of life, its motion in time, life and death, all worked in one sequence of creation and recreation for a well-balanced measured time. For this flower it was just this one day, went like the blink of an eye. Somehow this one day cycle gave a sudden reminder of this unique motion of life, also of time and space, that keeps changing from one form to the other. More curiously, such changing with time could be applied to the larger macro-cosmos too, the creation of the universe and its re-creation with changing time and space. Such are the dynamics, set on the strange mysterious clock by which both macro and micro cosmoses work, by the will of the Mighty Supreme. We remain in awe, and keep wondering and thinking way beyond our normal imaginations.....

I hope the sequences have been self-explanatory and you have enjoyed the story that the one day flower left behind......

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The Lily siblings

They came all together, in the later part of spring, atleast it seemed they had decided their majestic displays, to wait after the bougainvillea burst, that we could hold our breath and admire them. and you can check out the buds in pairs ready to bloom one after the other. They seemed to be tightly nested together, before they unraveled. 

The pink ones came out all at the same time this year. Thought of planting more of them next year and if they should all flower at the same time, then its would give the image of a miniature field on the rooftop. Would be splendid! The lilies were, large, swan-like and delicate, yet they last long.  The pink one seemed a perfect water colour painting, as many already suggested from the lines, tones and textures, gave an image in mind of a water colour display, or one could sit in front of it, and  right away to pick up and make the brush strokes with intricate details. The red ones didn’t show such colour schemes or tones, but the solid blood red was enough appealing to the eyes, and they were simply mesmerizing!

Late spring 2018

Spring came in late, but came with a bang, atleast the bougainvillia colours lit up like a wild fire, bright and luminescent magenta, pink and yellow. As the winter hadn't had it's seasonal spirit, I was not so sure how the spring will be, and my expectations were low, and Wow, what a burst of colours it has been! The breeze was easily felt but slowly the temperatures became steady to allow the flowers to bloom to the brim. It appears that the flowers do not like the change of temperatures. and they need to get used to one, to bloom at their best. And we were lucky that the air didn't pick up the present heat soon enough, as they got time to reach the peak of their blossom. Their colours were so solid, that they not only shone through the bright sun, they lit up at sunset, they were seen after sunset, under evening sky too. They were like a burst of joy, bringing life and happiness to each soul that caught, even, just a sheer glance!  

Other flowers also joined in the colour race of spring, we can see them in sets. And the diantus, bright and beaming, seemed like a painted picture. And so were the plumerias and orange cosmoses.  All this bloom, also it gave us a chance to light up the stairway too. 

The roof top showed its majestic appeal, as I kept clicking around for more and more colourful displays....