Who dunnit…

I was mighty pleased when I spotted some buds…

…appearing on my ulam raja plant. Gee!!! So far, I only knew that the leaves were edible and eating them would bring a whole lot of health benefits but little did I know at that point in time that it would flower.

I thought it would look like a mini-version of the chrysanthemum, yellow in colour, but my blogger-friend commented on my photograph on Facebook and said that it would be pink. So I went and googled and saw this – it was a nice shade of pinkish purple, very pretty!

However, when it bloomed, it was indeed yellow…

…and never mind the difference, it was very pretty too. It seems there are two varieties actually and the one with yellow flowers has longer leaves or something.

It looked like there were a lot of seeds…

…and some people started asking me for them. I would not know how to go about collecting those but somebody said that I would have to wait till the flower had dried up and withered and then I could take the seeds.

It was very lasting, the flower – I think it was in full bloom for at least three days and on the morning of the fourth day, I was aghast when I woke up and saw this…

Drats!!! Now, who could have done that? The petals were almost all gone and the seeds as well!!! Was it the wind? Or was it those birds in my garden? When I first planted the two seedlings that I got from Peter – he just pulled two out from one of the pots at his café to give to me, those feathered creatures got to them, leaving behind a tiny little sprig. I managed to salvage that and kept it under cover for a long while till the plant was big enough – let them come and eat, there would be enough leaves to spare.

It is now over a meter high and that is why when somebody suggested cutting away the flowers so more branches would grow, I said no way would I do something like that! Why on earth would I want more branches when we have more than enough for us to enjoy…and for the birds too! Let the flowers bloom and I can find pleasure in looking at them in all their glory.

There is another one now…

…though I don’t know if I can get any seeds from it this time around and yet another bud has appeared too – obviously, there will be another flower soon.

Fingers crossed!!!