Horticultural Gardens and Cityscapes enroute

starting off with a picture of the adenium - the legendary desert rose

i wonder what these two are:



a patch of portulacas:

a shock of color amidst the green:

a beautiful purple trumpet:

This one has intrigued me for long - a creeper with little blue flowers. i wonder if it is the slender dwarf morning glory:


The real 'bird of paradise' - the flowers are barely visible though:


This tree had a hue of blue all over because of its little blue flowers. The leaves are tiny, dark green and shiny. The bark is like that of the eucalyptus. The ground all around was seemingly covered wiht blue chalk powder - petals of the flowers.




For cityscapes click here.


Update: The second picture has been identified as the scarlet flame bean, the third as the fish tail palm. The little blue flowers on the creeper is the skyblue clustervine and the tree in the last three pictures is the tree of life. Later posts will tell you more about all of these. Click on the labels!

Pictures from Shakambari

gothic succulent plant:

From 090315 Shakambari

Passion fruit variety?:

From 090315 Shakambari

ISnt this colorful?!

From 090315 Shakambari

From 090315 Shakambari

Chennai's prolific bloomers - Raintree and more

A drive to Shakambari (our neighbourhood nursery) and then through Gandhinagar last weekend provided a lot of photo opportunities of the trees that bloom at this time of the year and lend so much color to the city.
The raintree- which, in full bloom, is a really beautiful tree. It's flowers have a powderpuff like appearance, with silky strands that are white at the base and pink on top. The flowers warrant a closer look than is displayed here:


The Spathodia was also in full bloom - painting the city red with its pretty flowers:




Beautiful white bougainvilla hung from gates:

From 090315 Shakambari

There was also a profusion of yellow thanks to the candlebush and chestnut leaf trumpetbushes; light pink/white from the white trumpets, reds and oranges from the roadside bougainvillas and clouds of yellow from the copperpod. More pictures to come! Here's one of the entrance to an apartment complex strewn with white trumpets from the tree near the gate.

The ethereal flowers of the podalangai (snake gourd) plant

From 090218 - Fruits n Vegs

From 090215 - Fruits and Vegs

the fruits are quite substantial :)

From 090215 - Fruits and Vegs

Is lobster claw

Contrary to what we always thought, this is not the bird of paradise! This is the lobster claw.

another prolific bloomer IDed - Yellow Chestnutleaf Trumpetbush

The ubiquitous chestnutleaf trumpetbush (tecoma castanifolia). Take a close look at the flowers - they are often confused with the slightly bigger and equally omnipresent alamandas and with the national flower of the US virgin islands - the yellow bells (tecoma stans) which have compound leaves.
Click on the first picture and take a closer look at the leaves - they are simple leaves and have beautiful serated edges.
Now i wonder if these flowers are what are also called 'yellow bells'?

Tailed Jay (Graphium Agamemnon)

No it isn't a dried leaf, it's a butterfly!! The tailed jay belongs to the category Papilionidae (Swallowtail butterfly).

From Butterflies

Agamemnon was the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Helen of Troy. Why a butterfly is named after the decidedly mentally messed up megalomaniacal king is not something i know.

My mother's pride and joy - Brinjals from the garden

From 090215 - Fruits and Vegs