The desert blooms

All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.
Swedish Proverb

You might be inclined to think that the Desert Roses (Adenium obesum) pictured below were store-bought, that one crazy day my mother went on a shopping spree and bought nothing but these plants alone. The truth is these plants came from just one source. And they are not from cuttings either, they were all grown from seeds.

The second generation of locally grown Desert Roses around the Cardboard Palm.

I know, some big trees come from teeny-weeny seeds so it should not be surprising to see where a Desert Rose begins. But I had no idea what the seed of a Desert Rose looks like. Heck, I didn't even know that it develops inside a seedpod and that there's plenty of seeds in one pod alone. So when Mom sent pictures of the seedpod and the seeds inside the pods I was amazed.

The seeds of a Desert Rose.

From the picture above, one can deduce that the seeds of this plant are dispersed by the wind. The light and delicate strands of silky hair attached on one end of the seed allows the seed to be picked up by even a slight breeze. This type of wind dispersal is called "parachute." For other ways on how seeds are dispersed by the wind, click here.

These are two of our Desert Roses with pods. On the left the pods are encased in plastic bags so that the seeds would not scatter when the pods burst open. The pods on the right are still immature.

In my older post A rose is a rose is a rose I mentioned that our first batch of baby Desert Roses came from a seedpod that was already developing in a plant when it was bought from a plant store. The second batch also came from one of the bought plants but the pods came months after it was bought, enough to say that they're already farm-grown just like the pods shown above.

These will be the next generation of Desert Roses in the garden, safely bagged for future use.

As long as our Desert Roses continue to produce fertile seeds it is safe to assume they won't go extinct in the garden. I can say the next generation of Desert Roses are "in the bag" ... literally.
tropical garden Tropical Garden tropical garden Tropical Garden

A rose by any other name...

... would smell as sweet. However, this "Rose" I'm talking about has no scent to boast of and is not even a real rose.

The mother plant that produced our next batch of baby Desert Roses.

This Desert Rose (yeh ley yeh ley),
each of her veil's a secret promise
This desert flower (yeh ley yeh ley),
no sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this

Sweet Desert Rose (yeh ley yeh ley),
this memory of Eden haunts us all
This desert flower, this rare perfume
is the sweet intoxication of the fall...

("Desert Rose" by Sting)

So why would Sting sing of the Desert Rose like it has a sweet and intoxicating perfume? Maybe his song is about some other plant or perhaps it's about a woman whom he calls "Desert Rose", I don't know. What I do know is that we now have an abundant supply of Adenium obesum. Sweet!

I have no current pictures of our Desert Rose in bloom. What I do have though are proofs that they did flower and their blooms left behind progenies that will guarantee their species' continued existence in our garden.

The second batch of young Desert Roses in the nursery with a couple of ornamental pineapples lost in their midst.

In my previous entry "A rose is a rose is a rose", I've mentioned how we got to produce a lot of baby Desert Roses from a single mother plant. I'm glad to say that those babies are no longer babies and some of them are now scattered all over the upper garden. Some are still left in the nursery and they too are doing well just biding their time until they too are moved to their permanent location.

What's left of the first batch of Desert Roses bred in our garden nursery. Their siblings have already been scattered in the upper garden.

Mom was so successful at her first attempt in propagating this plant from seeds that she tried her luck once more. Now we have a new batch of young Adeniums in the nursery. They're still small and cute but they are already manifesting one of the distinctive characteristics of a Desert Rose, a stout base. They will reside in the nursery for a few more months until they're old enough to be transplanted.

The flower of the Desert Rose may not have a sweet scent that intoxicates the senses. But that does not diminish the beauty of this plant.

A rose is a rose is a rose

A 'baby' Desert Rose already in bloom.

Rummaging through the different plants sold in a nearby garden store (the kind that is attached to a big lumber and hardware store), I spotted a small, less than a foot tall plant that I could vaguely recognize. But because it was beautifully presented and was in bloom, I slowly gravitated toward it.

As I got closer, I remembered what kind of plant it was although I didn't know yet its common name. Reading the accompanying tag that had the plant name and care instructions, it was a Desert Rose (Adenium obesum), and it said that it requires minimal watering or it will rot.

In the Philippines, it is commonly known as 'Dwarf Kalachuchi' - 'Kalachuchi' is the vernacular name for Plumeria. And there it rains a lot during the wet season but this plant is able to survive a heavy soaking.

Rows of little Desert Roses in our garden.

So I asked Mom to include this plant on their next trip to the garden store. The plant they bought was in bloom so the store owner told them to gather the seeds when the pods ripen and plant them immediately. That's how we ended up with a lot of baby Desert Roses in our nursery.

The mother plant that gave birth to our little Desert Roses.

The 'baby' Adeniums are thriving well that some of them started to flower at a young age and only a few inches tall.

Because of the current drought problem, these little beauties will continue to reside in the lower garden (which is our 'nursery') for the time being. When the climate is right, they too will be dispersed in the upper garden.

Indeed, a rose is a rose is a rose, unless its a Desert Rose.