Wishing one and all a very happy and healthy new year. The beggining of 2010 is a good start at our community garden we had our second harvest of sweet potatoes, first harvest of white bitter gourd and play host to visitors from Toyota Motors and also students from Jurong Primary School. It is wonderful that Community-In-Bloom programme has brought people of all ages together.

For a long time, I wasn’t too interested in culinary herbs like mint. However, via a fellow gardening friend from Green Culture Singapore, my perspective about mint took a dramatic turn and I got hooked to the range of mint cultivars that exist. This is perhaps the first time I am ‘declaring’ my love for this group of edible and very aromatic group of plants.

One of the favourite mints is the pineapple mint. Commonly known via the botanical name Mentha suaveolens ‘Variegata’, pineapple mint features very attractive, oval leaves that are variegated. According to the wonderful book ‘The Encyclopedia of Herbs’ by Tucker and Debaggio, this pretty mint should be botanically named as Mentha suaveolens var. suaveolens.

Bonsai is an art of aesthetic miniaturization of trees or making woody or semi- woody plants into looking like trees. Container- grown plants which includes trees have a long history and is even recorded in the Egyptian culture. I must say that the popularity of growing bonsai would be the Japanese. One of the oldest known living bonsai tree can be found in the Tokyo Imperial Palace in Japan. The tree is at least 500 years old when it was first trained as a bonsai.

I was given a division of Orchidantha siamensis by a fellow collector a while ago who knew I was interested in plants that are classified in the order Zingiberales. There is only one genus, that is, Orchidantha, in the Lowiaceae family. This genus consists of about five to eight species of plants that grow in the wet understorey of the lowland forest and are native to Southeast Asia and some Pacific Islands.The genus name is given due to the orchid-like appearance of the flowers produced by these plants. Flowers are usually produced via a subterranean inflorescence and are often hidden away. One of the petals in each flower is enlarged to give a large lip-like structure similar to what is seen in a true orchid. Flowers of one species, Orchidantha inouei of Borneo emits the smell of dung in order to attract small dung beetles as their pollinators! The plant I have freely flowers and thankfully, the smell of its flowers can only be detected when one really goes upclose to them!

The roselle plant is well known for its fleshy calyces that are used to make a beverage that tastes like Ribena. The drink reportedly possesses anti-hypertensive, diuretic and mild laxative properties, and contains abundant amounts of natural antioxidants such as vitamin C and anthocyanins.

The pink flower of the roselle plant that looks like a small hibiscus.

Either fresh roselle or dried calyces are used to make the drink. They are first boiled in water to yield a deep-red and sour beverage, which is then sweetened with sugar and chilled in a refrigerator before serving.  Besides producing calyces for making drinks, the roselle plant has a stem that is laden with calcyes at every node. This can be turned into an alternative cut-flower material for flower arrangements, after the removal of its leaves. Also, did you know that the young leaves and tender shoots of the roselle plant are edible? They can be eaten raw in salads or cooked as greens either on their own, or with other leafy vegetables and meat. The stems of the roselle plant also yield a fibre that can be used as a substitute for jute in making burlaps.

 
A stem with calyces on it makes an attractive cut-flower material for flower arranging.

The roselle plant is easily raised from seeds or stem-cuttings, and is best grown using well-drained, fertile soil. It can be planted outdoors in the ground or inside a container placed on a windowsill or balcony, as long as the plant receives direct sunshine for at least six hours daily. Fertilise regularly with granular fertiliser to encourage vigorous growth and generous production of calcyes at maturity.

Cut portions of roselle plants are sold as a leafy vegetable in Little India.

Did you know?

If you were wondering what calyces are (singular – calyx), well, they refer to the collection of sepals behind the petals of a flower. Sepals in most flowering plants are leafy and green, forming the outer protective covering of a flower bud. Botanically known as Hibiscus sabdariffa, the roselle plant is a member of the hibiscus family, Malvaceae. The plant is a shrub that produces numerous attractive, pink-coloured hibiscus-like flowers, with a distinctive eye in the centre.

By Wilson Wong

Of late, my mind has been filled with images of some lovely things.

Living, breathing and very green things — a bunch of creatures completely at ease with nature. 

I am not thinking of those fake Christmas trees that light up our streets, malls, offices and homes in the festive season, but the real, raw and fresh ones which have their roots sunken in our homeland.

They — these lovely Trees — line our roads and pathways like loyal guards, come rain or shine, every ordinary day. 

I find myself particularly fascinated by the Rain Tree, also known by its scientific name of “samanea saman“. The Rain Tree is believed to be native to places as far flung as South and Central America, but has been extensively cultivated and somewhat naturalised in the Pacific regions and other tropical countries like Singapore.

I always make it a point to pause in my steps, to look up to the sky above me.

The almost symmetrical canopy of the Rain Tree intrigues me. Her large girth wraps around like an over sized brown donut ring. The haphazardness in the pattern of her branch community is by itself extremely captivating. Her branches sprout upward, diagonally and even laterally into an unpredictable green network of small leaves. 

The leaves fold and droop systematically, on a grey rainy day — to allow rain to fall through to moisten the ground below her, or at the end of a work day — much like any of us. It is not by coincidence that the Rain Tree is known as “Pukul Lima” in Malay, which means the “Five o’clock tree”.

The origin and derivation of the “Rain Tree” name makes this tree all the more enchanting. The tree also exudes a magical feel that is quintessentially charming. On some days with unusual hues of atmospheric light and air particles, the early morning or evening sunlight that bears through the Rain Tree canopy and branches and onto the fungi strewn on its bark, gives rise to a fairytale-like experience.

I remember once, many years ago, cruising along the long, undulating and winding stretch of Upper Thomson Road, when that ‘moment’ arrived and I felt like Alice travelling through a tropical wonderland. I was spell bound yet soothed by the golden light reflected by the orange-coloured species of the fungous family that had found their home on the barks of the Rain Tree. It was as if an extraterrestrial light was directed upon my path, lighting the way for me to a world of solace, hope, peace and comfort. It was surreal.

The Rain Tree, itself intolerant of shade, nevertheless indulges us with her umbrella canopy and provides in her quiet demeanour, fresh air and cool shade, whenever and wherever we emerge from air-conditioned shafts. When her fruit ripens, the black, curved and lumpy pods explode in mid-air, as if celebrating rebirth. 

She wears her jewelled head gear in a convex embrace towards the sky, and struts off draped in her green, green dress, sequined midway at the bust or waist, in fern flair and wild orchids. Her strong intervening roots often make their mark and break out of the tarmac in and around our open air car parks.

After the descent of some tropical rain that befalls not infrequently, the brown of the Rain Tree bark would be accentuated into a darker tone of blackish-brown. In a sleepy warm afternoon, she would sometimes be self-awakened by the flamboyance of her pink flowering blooms, and tickled by stamens that drop from her canopy crown like rain.

The Rain Tree is deeply alluring to admirers like me, in ways similar to how sweet-loving insects are drawn to her drizzles of nectar sap that sometimes fall from her body like rain. Not many would know that these are but one of the few phenomena to which the name of the Rain Tree has been attributed.

I was most delighted to know that the National Parks Board (NParks) maintains a Heritage Tree Register on its website. The Rain Tree is unequivocally one of such amazing Heritage Trees (the last time I checked the register, there were 13 individual Rain Trees marked on this unique register). A few impressive ones which I have spotted include those around the Everton estate and the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

The Rain Tree is indeed a living green gift to our city state, spanning pretty across our garden island. 

Inspired by the Rain Tree (and driven by the urge to reduce my own carbon foot print on my own initiative since the closure of the ‘Hopenhagen’ summit), I plan to register (and pay) to participate in the NParks’ regular Tree Planting programme.

I would happily plant a sapling or two with my family. I imagine that the neighbourhood park in which we may adopt to plant the young saplings, would never quite feel or look the same again — for something symbolic of our family would have been planted and be growing in its midst.

I would want to return regularly to visit, to feel the faint grooves in their young bark skin deepening, to share with them our human secrets, and see for ourselves how they are adapting and growing.

I find it an immensely comforting thought that the Trees would grow in tandem and in strength with my 2 young boys — as if the tree spirits would look upon them, in a way beyond the mortal ambit and powers of the human watch tower.

I imagine my sons’ lanky bodies seeking comfort and shade from their Trees in their teenage years, and many years later, bringing their own children to play or read under their shade. It is my wish too that my husband and I would age gracefully with these green lovely things.

Now think: have you planted your Tree or engaged in Some Lovely Things today?