Startling Blue. Stachytarpheta jamaicensis at Tanjung Mangsit, Lombok, Indonesia
Startling Blue... for once I was really very, very happy with my relatively new Sony T900. I've thought the colors were slightly 'off''. But this photo is really precisely the way I remember the actual flower this morning.
It's what I as a boy called snakeweed or porterweed. Botanists used to call it Stachytarpheta indica -Thick-Spiked Indian, I guess . Now the official name is Stachytarpheta jamaicensis, and it's a Verbena family member. Hailing from the Americas it's become naturalised all over temperate and tropical regions, also here on Lombok, especially it seems in rather sandy - in this case: coastal - areas..
'Yes..., yes! Mistrr., Mistrr', said the very talkative and pleasant and knowledgeable headwaitress in the restaurant of my little hotel when I showed her this flower... 'No, not very good. Selasih dandi. It is where dead people are.' I'm not sure her identification was all that precise. Someone else I asked said that this is a 'mystical' plant. My command of Bahasa Indonesia is really too limited to understand much of what is said.
Another inquisitive guest, good at English and quite interested, said: 'Ah! "Selasih" you say. There's an expression "Mabuk bunga selasih"; means "very drunk".' I'd just heard that another visitor here had taken "M'buk laut", had caught a touch of sea-sickness on the way to one of the Gili islands, so I knew what 'Mabuk' means. But what about sick of 'selasih flower'? I'm at a loss. But perhaps the 'selasih' referred to in that expression is to the herb basil. I can imagine being drunk on that wonderful aromatic...
Whatever the case, my photo of this lovely vervain on the slope as I climbed down from Mangsit Point (Tanjung Mangsit) to the palm plantations and the taut black, sandy beach below, gave some pleasure to the denizens of this most pleasant abode... Of course, they all thought I was mad, that is: drunk with vervain!
Startling Blue. Stachytarpheta jamaicensis at Tanjung Mangsit, Lombok, Indonesia
Startling Blue... for once I was really very, very happy with my relatively new Sony T900. I've thought the colors were slightly 'off''. But this photo is really precisely the way I remember the actual flower this morning.
It's what I as a boy called snakeweed or porterweed. Botanists used to call it Stachytarpheta indica -Thick-Spiked Indian, I guess . Now the official name is Stachytarpheta jamaicensis, and it's a Verbena family member. Hailing from the Americas it's become naturalised all over temperate and tropical regions, also here on Lombok, especially it seems in rather sandy - in this case: coastal - areas..
'Yes..., yes! Mistrr., Mistrr', said the very talkative and pleasant and knowledgeable headwaitress in the restaurant of my little hotel when I showed her this flower... 'No, not very good. Selasih dandi. It is where dead people are.' I'm not sure her identification was all that precise. Someone else I asked said that this is a 'mystical' plant. My command of Bahasa Indonesia is really too limited to understand much of what is said.
Another inquisitive guest, good at English and quite interested, said: 'Ah! "Selasih" you say. There's an expression "Mabuk bunga selasih"; means "very drunk".' I'd just heard that another visitor here had taken "M'buk laut", had caught a touch of sea-sickness on the way to one of the Gili islands, so I knew what 'Mabuk' means. But what about sick of 'selasih flower'? I'm at a loss. But perhaps the 'selasih' referred to in that expression is to the herb basil. I can imagine being drunk on that wonderful aromatic...
Whatever the case, my photo of this lovely vervain on the slope as I climbed down from Mangsit Point (Tanjung Mangsit) to the palm plantations and the taut black, sandy beach below, gave some pleasure to the denizens of this most pleasant abode... Of course, they all thought I was mad, that is: drunk with vervain!