What an odd plant the frangipani. It seems backward in making flowers before leaves but it seems to work.
Also known as plumeria it has long pointed oval-shaped leaves and flowers of delicate beauty and intense scent. It grows in tropical and subtropical areas including parts of Florida.
Out of season the plumeria is like a child’s drawing of a tree, a trunk and several limbs all the same size. Then the flowers and a few leaves come bursting from all over the barren trunks. And after most of the blooming is done a big crop of leaves finally fills in the tree.
The flowers are used to make perfume and incense. In Hawaii they are strung together to form beautiful leis and women traditionally wear one behind their left ear to show they are taken and behind the right ear if looking for love.
The flowers’ scent has a practical use. It lures the Sphinx moth to it for pollination. There is no nectar but the moth doesn’t know that and goes from flower to flower searching for that succulent sip of sweetness that never materializes. Hopefully the moth has other places to dine.
Unlike the moth, we require no nectar, we just can enjoy the beautiful flowers and heavenly scent they send wafting through the air.
Photo by guest blogger Sue Harrison