Blooms of Bayshore -Part 2

Walking ahead near the promenade area we find the bright yellow and orange flowers. The Canna flowers are a common sight in parts of the world that receive plenty of rain. It is known as Canna Hybrid or Canna Lily. In my home land it is "malayalamised" and christened as "Kaana Poovu" or "Vaazha Chedi" since the leaves and stem resemble that of a Banana.

Canna Hybrid

Botanical Name : Canna Hybrid, Family : Cannanaceae. It is known i guess as "keli" in Hindi. The flowers are typically orange or red or a combination of these two colors with a slight mix of yellow here and there.

Purpose is mostly ornamental. But the interesting facts came out when i read more about these plants. Their seeds are used to make beads for jewelry. The rhizhome (swollen underground stem) is used for starch and in animal fodder. The tender shoots are used as vegetables and young seeds to make tortillas.
Some remote regions in India produce alcohol from this plant! WOW...dats some use i could have never imagined.
Some musical instruments like Kayamb are made from parts of the plant in a french ruled island named "Reunion", SW of Mauritius.

Another interesting fact is that in Thailand these flowers are popular gifts during fathers day. I wish i could post some better images that came out of photoshop but the blog allows only limited formats.

a variety of Indian Shot Flower / Canna

Now comes a flower that i have grown up with! Literally found in every other house in Kerala, its a standard tropical shrub. Different colors, different varieties... The Hibiscus flower of Chembaruthi in Malayalam. "Gurhal" in hindi if i am not wrong. The most common flower color being red, followed by white. I have seen pink, yellow and orange of these too. Rarely seen flowers that have double shades as well.

Chembaruthi Poovu or Gurhal flower

 Family : Malvaceae. The shrub is mostly used for ornamental purpose, but it has many other uses in my home state.

Hibiscus flower

Hibiscus and Bougainvillea are the most common shrubs used for landscaping on road partitions, on highways around India ...esp southern states.

One more snap of Hibiscus

I have a different variety in my house at Trivandrum which has double the petal layers and the pistil is smaller and thicker. We used to make garlands of the petals along with jasmine and other flowers in the garden for special occasions and pooja. The leaves of hibiscus are ground into fine paste and the green juice is sewed to make something called "thali". It is applied on the scalp to prevent dandruff. This also cools the scalp and is a big stress buster. Used in mostly all Ayurvedic hair treatments. Mom used to put couple of these leaves into the hair oil along with Tulsi and Neem leaves. 

to be contd...