Blooms of May

 As far as merry time is concerned this year May has been a lovely month so far, if you can ignore the fact that the past couple of days have been warm, to the point of needing to put up the AC in each room. In spite of that harsh weather,  Mother's Day in this month, was awfully grey, with chilled rain, with ice grains came pouring down at various times during the day.  Despite that, the flower pots have been vigourously proclaiming that it's spring.
In this post I am talking about two blooms only.........

 Our poted "keli" bloomed this year.  This shrub was planted many years ago by a gardener on my request.  It was planted in a very small   earthen pot that time then replaced in several other pots. I love this plant and tried for mini kellies’ in small tins several time.

 Botanical Name : Canna Hybrid, Family : Cannanaceae.  It is known as "keli" in Hindi. The flowers are typically orange or red or a combination of these two colours 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 jewellery. The rhizome (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! OH its  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 father’s day.

As for as my Keli plant is concerned don’t know why it bloomed this year and in this pot only I was thrilled and surprised on seeing the flower on this plant. Other was it was foliage only..........sooooobeautifulllll on that state tooooooooooo 

Hibiscus 

Now comes a flower that i have grown up with! Literally grown in our  every(where we lived),   it’s a standard tropical shrub. The Hibiscus flower named"Gurhal" in hindi if i am not wrong.

Family : Malvac The shrub is mostly used for ornamental purpose, but it has many other uses.

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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,as I discovered.

xoxo