Thekkady Kanthari and Polycotyledon seedling

I love collecting chilli varieties from places that I go to. For me these chillies represent the food and spice culture of the region. On one of the trips to India, I managed to get my hands on this bird's eye chilli from a village in Thekkady, Kerala, India. The bird's eye chilli or Kanthari as they call it, comes in many size forms. I was told that the smaller the fruit, and the more intense the heat, the better the Kanthari is.

The bird's eye chilli collected from Thekkady.

So this Thekkady Kanthari (I like to call it Thekkady Tiny Atomic Kanthari) that I picked up from the local is a tiny, thin fleshed but explosively hot type. They also dry it and use as a dried spice. Whilst the fruit is a juicy berry when ripe on the tree, they can dry out if are left on the tree since the fruit walls are thin. I found that when it was grown here, the fruits will eventually dry on the plant, if the weather is good and no birds get to them. The fruits are at most 1.5cm long, but usually shorter, thus looking very much like a rice grain, only larger. Perhaps that is why we call those chilli - cili padi (rice grain chilli). This Capsicum frutescens variety is small-fruited, but boy do they pack a lot of heat, for one is enough to make a bowl of tom-yam soup spicy hot!

The little fruits are plentiful and will dry on the tree if left alone.

Thekkady Kanthari from the balcony - the longest is only 1.5cm long.

On this batch seeds sown, I managed to get a polycotyledon seedling. Polycotyledon in Capsicum are controlled by three non-allelic genes, that is why you seldom see them expressed. In tomatoes, the polycotyledon trait is associated with abnormal flower parts and inflorescence, and hence poor fruit production. This is apparently is the same for chillies. However, one grower in The Hot Pepper forum had polycotyledon chilli that produced more yield than normal ones. So I am keeping this seedling to see how fruit set and yield are affected by this trait.

The odd quadruple cotyledon seedling.

The first leaves are also twisted to one side.

Cili Api Centil - Local Bird's Eye Chilli

Most of the bird's eye cili (Capsicum frutescens) you get in the supermarket in Malaysia are from Thailand, the dark green, slim and rather long ones. Whilst they are hot, the heat isn't that intense and is considered to be on the lowest rung for bird's eye chilli varieties. There is another variety that is also common locally, and spicier than the Thai version - this is the Cili api Centil. It is also marketed as Cili padi Kampung.

The fruit of Centil is usually 1 - 1.5 inches long, but can go up to 1.8 inches long and they are about 0.5 inches wide at the base and tapers to a point. This gives the chilli a pyramidal bullet-shaped appearance. The unripe fruit are a light, shiny green and matures to a slightly darker green before turning brownish (red plus green) and then to a bright red colour when fully ripened. They are supposedly a productive variety but susceptible to leaf curl disease caused by viruses.

Some things are pretty in pink - Pink Crinums

I saw these lovely pink Crinums at Victoria Park in Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka. they were planted in the park on areas that are wet (like edges of streams and ponds). Crinums as a genus have fruits that are adapted for water dispersal and many species can stand being inundated with water for some time. Too bad we don't see many of these being planted here, probably more suited to cooler climes.

The pink flowers are sweetly fragrant.

Pretty in pink - they were grown in spots where the ground was moist and somewhat muddy.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

Adenium Taipei's Rose, a three-layered dark red bloom with black picotee petals.

Salam Aidilfitri to all Muslim friends and happy holidays to all. Weather has been crazy over here but Adeniums are loving the heat and blooming well.

Coming soon... Royal Floria 2016

Royal Floria 2016 is coming up, running from 27th May to 4th June 2016 with the theme “Magical World of FLORIA”, and featuring the Chrysanthemum as the theme flower. We went to see how a friend was setting up the exhibit and had a chance to see how they set things up.

Chrysanthemums - theme flower for this year's Floria

Main walkway with 'kites'

Quirky garden themes on one of the exhibit

Painting the Gingerbread House

Adding touches to the display inside the Floral Pavilion

Lights and twilight.

This year, the Magic of the Night returns to the site of Floria (ie no longer at Marina Putrajaya), which will make it easier for people to see it. The dancers were busy practicing their moves for the event in the evening.

Magic of the Night at Floria... Yippy

Istana Budaya dancers getting their moves right for Magic of the Night.

We manage to see work done on the Candy Courtyard, which is one of the large exhibits in Floria. The work done on the display is amazing.

View of the Candy Courtyard.

Love the train covered in Chrysanthemums.

Pink elephant at the Candy Courtyard

Another new thing for this year's Floria is the bonsai exhibition and competition by the Malaysian Bonsai and Suiseki Society. Many lovely specimens of bonsai will be on display at the Malaysia-China Friendship Pavillion.

Bonsai exhibition and competition

It ain't heavy, it is a bonsai...

Lovely bonsai are on display

So make a date to go to Royal Floria this school holiday season. There are many things for every member of the family. 

Jom.... Penang state pavilion being set up.

Working hard to get the flowers in inside the Floral Pavilion.

Sunset over the bridge at Floria... but work still in progress

More work in progress...

And even more work in progress to bring you Royal Floria 2016...

 

Feed you Desert Roses

The current weather in Klang Valley since mid February has been hot days and possible showers in the evenings. This hot and dry during the day and the then cooler nights are ideal time to feed your Adeniums or more commonly known as Desert Roses. If they are actively growing, AND the potting media is free draining, make sure they have moisture all day long and your Adeniums will grow like mad.

Adenium Thong Yod. The blooms are actually pretty large when they are well-fed and happily blooming

A good feed of fertiliser now and then will guarantee strong blooms, especially when they are actively growing and the air isn't too damp to bring about fungal diseases. Mine has been blooming like mad, though keeping up with the watering has been tough, since the potting mix that I use are too porous and doesn't hold water. Having a good run of flowers from my Adenium Thong Yod, Raspberry Freeze, Vietnam Love, Rose Beauty, Princess Fragrance, Sup Somboon, and even my friend's Black Swan II on loan for grafting.

Raspberry Freeze - love the almost fluorescent colour.

Black Swan II - thanks MK for the loan. Working on making it more beautiful, hehe.

So time to feed your Adeniums if you haven't done so.... they will surely reward you with pretty blooms.

Happy Year of The Monkey

Happy Year of the Fire Monkey to all who celebrate the Lunar New Year and happy holidays to my Malaysian friends. Will be off posting for a while as there are many events and festivals in my hometown for the Lunar New Year festival and will take a while to sort it all through.

Adenium Premsup Yellow - pretty, easy and showy

Adenium Prem Sup Yellow (or Yellow Prem Sup) is a Thai Adenium hybrid that has been around for some time. This is an Adenium hybrid that I feel every Adenium lover should have. They are tough, floriferous, have amazing colours and always blooms in a cluster of three or more flowers.

Lovely Adenium Prem Sup Yellow.

The blooms start off as a light canary yellow, which quickly takes on a blush pink edging in the tropical heat. Over the days that it blooms, the flowers acquires more blush pink tones until the flower is somewhat pinkish with yellow undertones at the end of bloom lifespan. So you can get two colours in one with this Adenium hybrid. Contrasting well with flowers are the glossy, green leaves with prominent white veins.

They are easily available in South-East Asian region as Thailand mass produces them for export. However one should be vary of Thailand's mass produced Adeniums as plant sanitary practices are not so well practiced, thus some plants may be virus infected.

Yellow is... beautiful

There is just this strange attraction that the colour yellow has on this nation. From the royal colour to a 'reviled' protest, we seem to be attracted to all things yellow. And yellow Adeniums are of course, very popular.

Adenium Thong Yod (or Thong Yot) - golden drop. The yellow is strong, but takes on a greenish-chrome yellow tone. Well, still better than pale off-white yellows.

Despite the attractiveness of yellow adeniums, they all tend to have a major flaw, at least in our climate. The yellows tend to fade to cream or white, or never develops the intensity that is advertised when grown in say Taiwan or Thailand. However, the plus side of yellow blooms are that most of them are weakly fragrant or more so in some selected hybrids.

Adenium Yellow Premsup - a pale yellow aging to pink blush yellow.

Adenium Princess Fragrance - the scent is rather strong, especially as the flowers age.

I believe that this is due to pigments or pigment development that is temperature sensitive or controlled by temperature sensitive gene transcriptions. Some bicoloured reds are too, ranging from truly two-toned to just pure red depending on the temps that were prevalent when the buds were developing.

The two-tone petals of Adenium Vietnam Love appears to be temperature sensitive. Too warm and they turn all red.

Perhaps breeding of yellows could be done in Malaysia, and a strong persistent yellow form be found for our climate that doesn't fade away.

Royal Floria 2015

The Royal Floria Putrajaya is still on until the 7th of June 2015. So two more days for those who had not see this event before. This years theme of Tapestry of Hues with lilies as the thematic flower was definitely much better than last year's sad attempt on Begonias.

Besides the usual beds and beds of Liliums and Hippeastrum lilies, there is a the Spring and Winter Garden, which requires an additional RM3 to get in. However, the comments from visitors were mixed, with some severely criticizing the lame attempt whilst others praised it as an added attraction for Floria.

So for those who had no plans for this weekend, why not drop by and give Floria 2015 a look.