I was walking on my way home today from my tutee's house when I came across some colorful santan flowers alongside the road.
I can't help but to recall the childhood memories with this flower. When I was a 6 or 7 years old, my parents we're working away from home so I was left with my grannies. My grandma used to be very fond of planting flowering plants on the front and backyard. Actually, the whole lot was planted with a lot of various plants. One of her favorites is the orchid but she also have other flowering plants such as euphorbia, roses, gumamela, century plant, zinnias, santan and a lot more. I can't remember the names of those plants but the memories are still vivid.
I used to play a lot with my cousin and whenever grandma is not around or not looking, we will harvest some santan flowers, removes the filament at the center of the flower and sip the sweet nectar. Then we connect each flowers, sometimes with a thread and make it into jewelries such as necklace, bracelets, rings and even head dresses which we call crowns! Oh, those we're the good old days.
Ixora coccinea, most commonly known in the Philippines as santan is a shrub from the Rubiaceae family. What's good about this flowering plant is that it blooms all year round. I've only seen three colors of it's flowers and I've seen it again today.
Pink Santan Flowers
A macro photograph of the yellow santan flowers
It rained so hard while I'm still on the way home so I was stranded at my friend's house. But it turned out good because after the rain, I was able to capture a macro photograph of the red santan flower. Isn't it lovely?
This flowering shrub is not only common in the Philippines. It is actually native to the countries of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Southern India. I'm even surprised to know that it is the national flower of Suriname!
It is commonly known as santan but there are other names for this flower. These are:
Jungle Geranium
Flame of the woods
Jungle Flame
West Indian Jasmine
Kheme
Ponna
Rangan
Techi
Jarum-jarum
Pan
Indeed, these shrubs makes a beautiful landscape too and we would all agree that they make school grounds and other public places more beautiful. And most of us are surely familiar about this flower but I'm sure that only few people knows that this is actually an edible flower! Yes, it is edible. I've read some references on the internet to find out more information about this shrub and came across a facebook post that says it can be made into a snack. It's actually my first time to know about it but I'll surely make another experiment on that in the future, and of course I'll share it here. Santan is one of the flowers that looks pleasing to the eyes, but also satisfies the tongue.
P.S: I really can't think of anything to write today and I'm also too lazy to write. But these santan flowers gave me an inspiration and the motivation to write. I hope you like this.
Thank you for reading! - @esciisc 💕
Read about edible flowers here:
What Looks Pleasing To The Eyes That Satisfies The Tongue
The macro photographs are very lovely. Haven't tried a santan snack as well, i womder what it tastes like.