Frangipani or plumeria
plumeria
13.8029, 100.656
Field Notes
Description:
The flowers are clustered at the branch tips. The individual flowers are tubular, 2 inches (5 cm) across, and have 5 broadly to narrowly oval lobes with yellow at their base. The flower stalks, flower buds, and the outside of the petals are reddish or tinged with red. The flowers emerge before the leaves in the springtime. The flowers are sometimes followed by dry, brown, cylindrical, 5 inch (12 cm) long seed follicles containing winged seeds. The leaves are matte green, leathery, and narrowly elliptic in shape with a distinctive pointed tip. The leaves are spirally arranged and clustered at the tips of the thick, fleshy, knobbly, brown branches. The plants have an open, branching form.
Habitat:
Its native range extends from central Mexico south through Central America to Colombia and Venezuela in South America. And in some parts of India
Notes:
The genus, originally spelled Plumiera, is named in honor of the seventeenth-century French botanist Charles Plumier, who traveled to the New World documenting many plant and animal species. The common name "Frangipani" comes from an Italian noble family, a sixteenth-century marquess who invented a plumeria-scented perfume. Many English speakers also simply use the generic name "plumeria". In Hawaii, the name is "melia". In Sri Lanka, it is referred to as araliya and (in English) as the Temple Tree. In Cantonese it is known as, 'gaai daan fa' or the 'egg yolk flower' tree.
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