Frangipani Tree (Barbados)

Photo by Gayla Trail  All Rights Reserved

I thought I’d post a sunny photo today since we’ve been living under grey skies all week and I’m about to collapse into a no-sun, low-energy coma. Although, scrolling through folders of photos of us frolicking in the Caribbean a few months ago is kind of miserable in its own way.

I took this photo on the first of a short four-day stay in Barbados, where I saw lots of wonderfully fragrant fragipani (Plumeria) trees in bloom. If you have never smelled a real frangipani bloom I hope you get the chance someday. They are extremely sweet, soft and rich. For many they epitomize tropical floral fragrance.

We walked for miles through the countryside on that first day trying to see as much as we could. It’s a good thing I soaked it all in while I had the chance because I don’t believe I saw a single frangipani through the following three weeks. Frangipani plants do not like their roots to be waterlogged. Barbados has a MUCH drier climate than Dominica so I figure that has got to be the reason.

Here’s a link to the photo and story of the very first frangipani plant I had a chance to see and smell, ten years ago.

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Caladium ‘Thai Beauty’

Photo by Gayla Trail  All Rights Reserved

Now that I have a new appreciation for caladium….

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Blushing

Photo by Gayla Trail  All Rights Reserved

This is the flower of the peacock plant (Calathea makoyana).

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Winter Jasmine Bonsai

Photo by Gayla Trail  All Rights Reserved

As seen in the Garden of Weedlessness greenhouse at the Montreal Botanical Gardens yesterday afternoon.

The Latin is Jasminum nudiflorum. It reminds me of forsythia.

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Charming Little Hearts

Photo by Gayla Trail  All Rights Reserved

Here’s another adorable succulent from my tour of Erika’s apartment, Conophytum blandum. Don’t they look like lots of little hearts?

On first glance the Latin blandum (blandus) seems wrong — these plants aren’t bland! To be sure I looked the word up in Gardener’s Latin and it turns out that blandus translates to pleasing or charming. This I think we can agree on.

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