My Favourite Frangipani Flowers


This is a post on Frangipani Flowers: they're my favourite flowers, and they evoke nostalgic memories of my childhood temple experience.  You can find them in different varieties and dazzling colours.


And image of pink frangipani flowers.
(courtesy of www.flowerpower.com)


I love Frangipani Blooms because of my everlasting love for them. The mention of them makes me nostalgic for the years I lived in my home as a young girl many years back. In the remote corner of our village, there was a temple.  


It stood on a raised platform in the middle of a rectangular yard.  Stone walls reached almost up to the roof on three sides except in the front, which was open as the entrance.  One had to climb a flight of stone steps to reach the entrance.  


On the right side of the flight fanned an old frangipani tree, my favourite one.  Frangipani is the English name; we call it Chempakam.  Its blooms were white with canary yellow in the middle, and the sweet, distinctive scent wafted freely through the air.  


Kerala temple frangipani


The temple was in the mornings and the evenings. When I usually visited the temple in the mornings, the blooms would be fresh, the dew drops gathered on their oval petals sparkling in the sun.  The sandy raised ground around the tree was a carpet spread with the old flowers, a little tainted.  The tree was a little short, the tallest branch reaching just the height of the stone flight.    


I had to struggle hard to resist my desire to pluck a flower from a branch.  The flowers were dedicated to the temple idol.  A lady assigned to the task of organizing flower garlands and offerings to the goddess would pluck them, put them in a fresh green banana leaf, and take them inside. 


I have seen frangipanis in many temples throughout Kerala, and perhaps that ascribes the name Temple Trees to them.  

How have they derived their names?


The name Frangipani comes from the Italian Marquis Frangipani. The story goes like this: He created a perfume to scent gloves in the 16th century, and later, when people began to associate that with the scent of frangipani flowers, they gave the flowers the same name. Plumeria is another name that is known in Italy. 


The origin of 'Plumeria' is attributed to Charles Plumer, a 17th-century French botanist, for just naming it.  However, according to author Peter Loewer, the honour goes to  Franciso de Mendoza, a Spanish priest named it in 1522.  


However, it's known under different names in different parts of the world: Temple Tree or Pagoda Tree in India and the Far East. Graveyard Tree in the Caribbean Island.  According to history, Plumeria originated in Mexico and Central America and spread to almost all tropical areas of the world.

Myths associated with Frangipani.


Catholic missionaries had spread it to different parts of the world, where they managed to travel, which explains the trees' plentiful presence in the Philippines and Thailand, the two countries that let them easy access, but not in China and Vietnam, the two countries that persecuted them until around the 1850s.  

In India, it's associated with loyalty; Hindu women wear flowers in their hair on their wedding day to declare their loyalty to their husbands. 

In Vietnam, it's associated with ghosts; ghosts live on trees with white flowers. 

According to 5000-year-old Ayurveda, India's holistic science, it is associated with medicinal values.  ' Warming oils' prepared from frangipani, sandalwood, lotus flower, frankincense, cinnamon, and basil are said to have a calming influence on those suffering from fear, anxiety, insomnia, etc. 

They come in various dazzling colours. 



Common White Frangipani 

Varieties of Plumeria


Plumeria plants are found in various varieties in different parts of the world. Fearing volume, I want to leave their details out here; each variety produces distinct flowers in distinct colours.  However, I shall show some beautiful flowers from these varieties and colours. 


Darwin blood red Frangipani



Darwin Yellow 









Darwin Petite Pink (All pictures courtesy to www.flowerpower.com)


Conclusion: 


I live in Cape Town, South Africa, far away from my favourite Frangipani tree. It still flowers there every day in front of the temple, keeping all its freshened vigour and vitality like an eternal presence of beauty. But I am not all lost about its presence: I see many yards in front of residential homes here graced with my favourite trees. 


This post is also for Blogchatter Bloghop (23- 29 July) on #Colour


Hi, my Blog won this week's 'Top blog on Blogchatter' title for this post. I am super excited to announce that I am winning the title in tandem. I won it last week also.

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