The common and the unusual

I can't seem to find anything to post today, much more so with the title for it. If you are from the temperate climes, even our common plants might however be unusual also to you. If you are from the tropics, we have the same standards of knowledge for them. My familiariy for these plants is just based on the frequency of seeing them.  But at least I know their requirements and propagation. Also as a word of caution, i post spontaneously using only what comes out from memory. So in case of mistakes or false information, I apologize! I just am too irresponsible today to be searching from the net. Yet, i am still very eager and enthusiastic to post something for you, my dear friends and followers. In any case, please tell me any mistake, and i will definitely try to change them. Thank you.



Portulaca oleraceae - very sun-loving, withstand hot climates, very easy to propagate by cuttings, hate too much water and oversoaking; however if neglected can be invasive in the tropics

Bougainvillea glabra - needs bright full sun and flower the whole year in equatorial countries. The very many colors we can see today are mostly varieties out of breeding 3 species (though there are 18 species), or from normal mutations. Do you know that the resulting plant from these variegated cultivar depends on which twig you will propagate? Since the red color is more genetically dominant, planting twig with dominantly red will produce both red and white, as in the one above. However, planting twig with only the white will give you very seldom red in the resulting flowers or none at all.

A purely whitish-yellow flowered variety. Bougainvillea flowers are those small yellowish corrugated structures at the middle. The papery structures surrounding the flowers are called bracts. Have you seen a bougainvillea fruit? I also haven't seen one, but they say it has small fruit. Of course they must have fruits, or how else can breeding succeed!

Since i've put the very common ones, this type now is the unusual. It looks like an epiphyte or a plant which gets food from the air, but it anchors on a tree trunk to multiply and might probably kill it. If its roots dig on its bark getting its food, which eventually kills the tree, then it is a stem parasite. I took this photos from a mangrove forest. It also has some very minute reddish flowers, which my camera cannot get well. I don't know this plant, but maybe this can also be grown in hanging baskets.  

P.S.

My appreciation and gratitude for Rico of Philippine Native Forest Trees in leading me to the ID of this last plant, Dischida spp. He suggested D. platyphylla, but i will be more content with putting only Dischida spp., as there are at least 80 species known and the exact species identification is a tricky business, which i better leave for the taxonomists. 

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