Weed on the Ramparts. Desmodium paniculatum, Panicled Tick Trefoil, Fort Santiago, Intramuros, Manila, Philippines
Whichever way you want to look at it, Manila is a fascinating city. In a very different fashion than anything I've experienced in Japan. There the very order and cleanliness is such that you're tempted to walk across a lawn, to drop a wrapper, to sneeze loudly in public, to go Habu-snake hunting, even though you can't read the signs that forbid such Gross Indecent Impoliteness and Danger. Here in Manila the utter clutter and the perpetual dirt is sense-boggling until you begin to find your way and become attuned to the great variety of smells both foul and sweet of a poverty-driven tropical Asian city and to the cacaphony of its traffic.
I chose to be near Rizal Park, devoted to the 'George Washington' of Philippine national independence, José Rizal. The park is overwhelmingly large with much nationalist statuary; rather crumbling, though, and falling apart, and also with many homeless people (generally with a smile for the Tourist with the Funny Japanese Hat). Whatever... I came here especially for the Japanese and Chinese Gardens and the Orchidarium. They'd been highly recommended. I was sorely disappointed. The Chinese and Japanese Gardens are scratchy affairs badly maintained, dry ponds, broken steps and paths. Plants not cultivated. Even the weeds - yes! those favorites of mine - seemed 'tired'. The Orchidarium is closed 'for renovation' and is - I was told by a 'street-person' - open only to wedding parties who want to pose prettily. She even made a joke of it, as you might expect.
Today I walked around the Old City, Intramuros, maybe five kilometers or so. At least as far as I was allowed. A large swathe of the beautiful lawns and greens are the very private Intramuros Golf Club. Fenced out are scores of derelicts who make themselves a home between the perimeter fence and the trees lining a major highway, and also anyone else who's not a member. Nowhere though did I have a sense of insecurity, and when I lost my way along the Pasig River - my presumed passageway has been blocked off by another grate - I was led back to a throughway by a pack of half-naked boys diving up from the incredibly dirty waters. Here, too, everything was 'broken' - even one or two of the lads -, but for the weeds!
Making my way to Fort Santiago and yet another shrine to José Rizal (1861-1896), I climbed onto the Bulwarks. Weeds, again, of course. Among them this pretty Desmodium paniculatum.
Great Carolus Linnaeus on the authority of Johannes Fredericus Gronovius (1686-1772) calls it Hedysarum paniculatum. But it received its Desmodian name from Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778-1841) in 1825. It is said to grow in dry woods and fields from New York southwards to Virginia. Since then - and perhaps earlier even if botanists didn't notice - it's been naturalised all over the world. Also on the dry grounds of the stony Ramparts of Intramuros, Manila, where I could greet it as an Old Friend.
The flower of this member of the bean family measures about 10 by 6-7 mm.
Weed on the Ramparts. Desmodium paniculatum, Panicled Tick Trefoil, Fort Santiago, Intramuros, Manila, Philippines
Whichever way you want to look at it, Manila is a fascinating city. In a very different fashion than anything I've experienced in Japan. There the very order and cleanliness is such that you're tempted to walk across a lawn, to drop a wrapper, to sneeze loudly in public, to go Habu-snake hunting, even though you can't read the signs that forbid such Gross Indecent Impoliteness and Danger. Here in Manila the utter clutter and the perpetual dirt is sense-boggling until you begin to find your way and become attuned to the great variety of smells both foul and sweet of a poverty-driven tropical Asian city and to the cacaphony of its traffic.
I chose to be near Rizal Park, devoted to the 'George Washington' of Philippine national independence, José Rizal. The park is overwhelmingly large with much nationalist statuary; rather crumbling, though, and falling apart, and also with many homeless people (generally with a smile for the Tourist with the Funny Japanese Hat). Whatever... I came here especially for the Japanese and Chinese Gardens and the Orchidarium. They'd been highly recommended. I was sorely disappointed. The Chinese and Japanese Gardens are scratchy affairs badly maintained, dry ponds, broken steps and paths. Plants not cultivated. Even the weeds - yes! those favorites of mine - seemed 'tired'. The Orchidarium is closed 'for renovation' and is - I was told by a 'street-person' - open only to wedding parties who want to pose prettily. She even made a joke of it, as you might expect.
Today I walked around the Old City, Intramuros, maybe five kilometers or so. At least as far as I was allowed. A large swathe of the beautiful lawns and greens are the very private Intramuros Golf Club. Fenced out are scores of derelicts who make themselves a home between the perimeter fence and the trees lining a major highway, and also anyone else who's not a member. Nowhere though did I have a sense of insecurity, and when I lost my way along the Pasig River - my presumed passageway has been blocked off by another grate - I was led back to a throughway by a pack of half-naked boys diving up from the incredibly dirty waters. Here, too, everything was 'broken' - even one or two of the lads -, but for the weeds!
Making my way to Fort Santiago and yet another shrine to José Rizal (1861-1896), I climbed onto the Bulwarks. Weeds, again, of course. Among them this pretty Desmodium paniculatum.
Great Carolus Linnaeus on the authority of Johannes Fredericus Gronovius (1686-1772) calls it Hedysarum paniculatum. But it received its Desmodian name from Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778-1841) in 1825. It is said to grow in dry woods and fields from New York southwards to Virginia. Since then - and perhaps earlier even if botanists didn't notice - it's been naturalised all over the world. Also on the dry grounds of the stony Ramparts of Intramuros, Manila, where I could greet it as an Old Friend.
The flower of this member of the bean family measures about 10 by 6-7 mm.