I have long been joining a lot of you on Fridays, flaunting our plants and flowers and link them to some memes. I get to be acquainted with temperate and sub-tropical plants, or feel envious sometimes of those which i like very much but can't grow well in our climate. And on the rebound, i get to show you our plants in this hot (and very hot!) tropical climate. I think this is a good way of not only engaging everyone, or enticing and envying them, but also informing each one of the beauty and richness of our individual climates treasures, the richness of our biodiversity. Also, we learn here which plants are someone's discard, but another's treasure, something very well cared for in one's garden, but found invasive in some areas! Furthermore, I get a lot of inspiration from your photos, compositions, etc, etc.
Thanks to the internet and blogging, I am learning a lot from all of you, and hopefully vise-versa!
Cockscomb is a very tropical plant, suited to our hot climate, but gets invasive seeds which i don't like. This is planted on the ground near my tomatoes, so share water seepage from them. You can see the very well developed flower combs from the many branches arising from the main trunk.
This is the trunk of the one above, isn't it also beautiful? I actually love its color. Fortunately, one plant is spared by mother's chicken.
The stem portion of the comb is full of seeds, and the individual seeds are as small as the Brassica seeds, e.g. cabbage, mustard, pechay. Those shown are potential weeds this coming rainy season, and that is just one comb yet.
It looks like some insects are also inhabiting the convoluted flowers, i wonder if they are living there as a good hiding place or they get some food from it too!
This one is planted on a plastic pot also near the tomatoes. So when the sun gets too hot, which is everyday from sunrise to sunset, its soil gets very dry and it gets limp and dry. Upon watering in the early evening, they get turgid again but somehow the heavy flowers cannot return sufficiently upright anymore. The combs are also much smaller than the first photo that is planted on the ground. Can you see the small baby praying mantis underneath the bent comb above? It is also hiding from the extreme heat of the sun, although i shot this early in the morning before 7am. Praying mantis are territorial, so it will not leave until the combs die.
