Wildflowers...that's what we thought...at first!

Dennis and I, a few years ago were so enthusiastic to make a coffee table book about wild flowers. We will get the photographs, he will provide some artistic sketches on the complete plant, and we will decide what to do next when it comes publishing time. "Who will provide for the publication", I said, it will be very costly. He said we will decide when we get there.

The following years we took photos, photos and more photos of the supposedly "wild flowers" we saw during our out of town travels. I only had a Point and Shoot then, but he eventually got a new DSLR. When it's time to arrange and choose the better ones (maybe there are no best) and write something about its classification and whatever comes to mind about the flower...hopes went dead! Even just the identification is so difficult! Moreso, most of them are already domesticated somewhere, it just happened to traverse a lonely path and became wild. Maybe an owner throw some parts or seeds and it went growing untended, as if WILD. Many of them are not even indigenous.

Hence, i will put them here, visually thinking this is a coffee table book!

Capparis micracantha

I saw this stunted bush while walking in the bushy secondary growths in Mabini, Batangas. I thought it is wild and endemic, but how will i know. Research work on this, i realized is so tedious and difficult...especially if you don't have much time. The next is also from the same area.

Breynia nervosa

Costus afer (spiral ginger)

This member of the ginger family is vigorously growing in a formerly farmed area, now conquered by the invader plants. The white delicate flowers at the apex only bloom for a day.

Clerodendrum intermedium (kasupanggil)

This 'kasupanggil' as the old people call them, is also growing luxuriously in a second growth forest. But there are also some coconuts scattered around, untended and just left on their own.

Heliotropium indicum

Ipomoea sp.

This vine grows along the roadsides and one of the last survivors during the summer hot months in Western Batangas. Those green roundish top-like structures near the purple flowers are the fruits. They mature in summer. The yellow variation at the right might not be an Ipomoea, as the leaves are different. However, i still don't know what they are!

Stachytarpheta jamaicensis

This is not domesticated but can be found in marginal areas. Only the butterflies love this! My 7-yr-old nephew, Allen, impressed her mother when he recited its scientific name. Its common name, though, is porterweed.

Tecoma stans (yellow trumpet bush)

This yellow flowering bush is vigorously growing in the wild areas in Siquijor, an island difficult to reach in the Visayas. There is no airport yet there, and the 1-hr boat ride from Dumaguete City is normally rough due to converging currents along the way. Siquijor, beautiful by itself, is made more awesome because of the profuse growth of this plant.