Plant Manual - A Beginner's Guide

Here's an article I just simply love & agree with. The author, Michael L. Tan, obviously knows a lot about exotic plants that fascinate the uneducated, the clueless and the ignoramus (as far as plant identification is concerned). I guess I tend to fall under that category, but hey, who cares. I'm obviously learning right now that the money you shell out for a plant rests on how well you don't know the plant's name or your inability to source it cheaply (or freely). Well, for plant lovers like me, be informed and be forewarned.
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Rangoon Creepers and Rain Lilies Posted:0:48 AM (Manila Times) May 20, 2003 By Michael L. Tan

Browse through American and European gardening magazines and you'll find article after article gushing about tropical plants. The other day I picked up one magazine with a cover story extolling the virtues of slipper orchids with advice on caring that was almost as detailed as tips on raising a child. A few minutes later, I passed by a "tiangge" (flea market) with plant dealers and they were selling exactly the same slipper orchids for about a hundred pesos each, together with even cheaper vandas and dendrobiums that would cost an arm and a leg in the west.

You hear "orkid," pronounced with a local accent and what comes to mind are sidewalk vendors, hawking them for as low as 10 pesos each (okay, so that's in Davao City). Say "orchid" with an American accent, no, make it "o-khid" in the Queen's English, and you think of expensive greenhouse varieties. "Slipper orchids" evoke the sultry and sensual, while Paphiopedilum, its scientific genus name, makes these orchids sound almost grand, the object of some National Geographic expedition.

I know that humans tend to want things that are exotic so we crave for temperate climate plants while westerners will build entire greenhouses to grow orchids and palms and other tropical plants that we hardly notice, or that may not even have names.

Lately, our plant dealers have started attaching name labels to their plants, sometimes with foreign-sounding names. As far as I'm concerned, that's fine if it'll help promote an appreciation of tropical plants.

Plain old sampaguita sounds a bit less ordinary when you use "jasmine," yes, the very same jasmine you find in the tea. Permit me one quick digression as I point out that connoisseurs scoff at jasmine tea, which is inferior tea leaves with the scent of dried jasmine buds used to distract mask the tea's low quality. But "jasmine tea" appeals, especially to westerners, because of clever marketing, jasmine flowers and Chinese tea playing on notions of the mysterious Orient.

Back to the flowers, the other day one plant dealer was trying to sell me star jasmine and Nicaraguan jasmine, but sometimes far-away names make me nervous because I have doubts about their survival. I imagined myself having to read it revolutionary Sandinista poetry to get Nicaraguan jasmine to thrive. My "suki" (favored) plant dealer, always quick to sense when my mind gallops off, assured me that these plants, notwithstanding their names, were as hardy as our own sampaguita.

Meanwhile, the dealer next door was tempting me with his Rangoon creeper. Five "lang," he offered. Jumping jasmines, I thought, 500 pesos? The plant, as its name goes, has swarmed all over the walls at my parents' place, and I was imagining Ninoy Aquino bills fluttering from their vines.

My parents' Rangoon creepers come from seeds I brought back from Bicol many years ago, while researching on medicinal plants. The plant is common in rural areas, its seeds used as a dewormer, and their coconut-like flavor giving them their name niyog-niyogan (coconut). City people don't use the plants for deworming; what's attractive are their flowers, which exude a faint but pleasant scent when night falls.

The Rangoon creepers go well with the bougainvillea, another tropical plant westerners would die for. Again, "bongobilya" makes it sound pedestrian, unless you become creative and describe the varieties, as horticultural magazines do, by their colors: lavender, salmon, orange fiesta, hot magenta.

We talk of flores de Mayo because the summer heat, with afternoon rains, bring out one of the most spectacular of nature's shows, with bougainvillea leading the way. No wonder it has a scientific name of Bougainvillea spectabilis. Do take advantage of the flores de Mayo to get out of the house and learn to identify the plants by their local and "imported" names.

Those no-name wild lilies by the roadside that come alive each summer with paired flowers are orange lirios. A distant relative of orange lirios are the cebollitas (literally, little onions) which bloom all year round with petite rose or white flowers. They're also called rain lilies. There's an amazing variety of wild lilies out. I found a plant growing out of a discarded plastic trash can, and when I looked up the plant in a botany book it turned out it was called Madonna lily, as well as Amazon lily.

Gumamela, a common roadside plant with many varieties and colors, sounds almost like they come from an English country garden when you call them hibiscus. Still another plant that does well on its own is tsitsirika, but plant dealers now offer them as "Vinca," the scientific name. My medical students are always amazed to learn these plants are the source of the anti-leukemia drug vincristine.

Walk down Palma Hall's corridors at UP, past trees with pink and white flowers, and you can smell the English name of kalatsutsi: frangipani. I always warn the students not to use kalatsutsi to court someone because Filipinos associate them with funerals. Stick to orchids, but be warned: the flowers' name is derived from the Greek orchis, which means balls, and I don't mean the ones you dribble.

The UP campus also has rows of splendid trees with red and orange flowers, with dynamic Spanish names: "caballero" (a young man, with connotations of showmanship) or "arbol de fuego" (fire trees). Spanish names are always so evocative: think of the "bandera Espanola, corazon de amor, cadena de amor." All those are again common wild plants.

I could go and on, but I think you get my point. We need to better appreciate plants that have been with us for centuries, many introduced by our Asian neighbors, or from central America through the galleon trade. Each plant carries a potential lesson in history and folklore, waiting to be retold and passed on.

Many ritzy hotels, resorts and restaurants are discovering the beauty of tropical plants and using them for interior decor: tsitsirika flowers in a silver bowl of water, for example, or a solitary cattleya orchid in a crystal vase.

When I hear guests oohing and aahing over the flower arrangements while dining on their hibiscus salads and lemongrass with fragrant screwpine tea (translation: "tanglad and pandan"), I wonder if, driving in, they noticed these plants growing free and wild by the roadside.