Showing posts with label tan hua. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tan hua. Show all posts

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Epiphyllum in bloom. Bunga bakawali / Tan hua. 9.21.14

Epiphyllum oxypetallum.  9.21.14

Epiphyllum oxypetallum.  9.21.14 
 The annual blooming of the "bunga bakawali".  This year was the first time at the Battleground place.  I've been keeping it on the east side of the house, watering about every other week.

Unlike past bloom seasons, this time the flowers have opened one at a time.  Which is nice, because I missed some of them, so I had opportunity to catch this one.  The flower was fully open at 10:30pm, and starting to close by 5am.

Prior posts describe this plant, known in Southeast Asia as Bunga bakawali and in China as Tuan hua.  It's very beautiful.  The fleeting moment of beauty is a lot like life in general.

Adding to the other info I posted, is this from wikipedia:  "
In India it is called Brahma Kamalam, named after the Hindu god of creation, Lord Brahma. It is also believed that the wishes of People who pray to God while the flower is blooming will be fulfilled....

The Chinese chengyu (four character idiom) 曇花一現 (tan hua yi xian) uses this flower (tan-hua; 曇花) to describe someone who has an impressive but very brief moment of glory, like a "flash in a pan", since the flower can take a year to bloom and only blooms over a single night. Therefore someone described as "曇花一現" is generally understood to be a person who shows off or unexpectedly gains some achievement and is thought to be an exception or only lucky. The flower also has a rich history in Japan, where it is known as the 月下美人 (Gekka Bijin) or "Beauty under the Moon".
Epiphyllum oxypetallum. 9.21.14