Be careful which ear you put that Frangipani over!

I know I promised to write about the beautiful red flame of the forest in this edition, but their blooming is not going as fast as I would like it to be. Our patience is being tested… We’ve been looking at these rough brown beans hanging down for months now. A couple of trees are taking an apprehensive start, but I’ll wait to describe them when they are in full glory.

Not disappointing are our frangipanis (or Plumerias). Plumeria was named in honour of a French seventeenth century botanist, Charles Plumier. Somewhere through history, the name changed from Plumiera to Plumeria. Their common name, frangipani, comes from an Italian noble family, a sixteenth century marquess of which invented a plumeria-scented perfume. This would mean that they had their common name, frangipani, before their scientific name, plumeria. You can still buy this perfume today but you might want to think twice about this… Read on …

They are native to Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and South America as far south as Brazil but have been spread throughout the world's tropics, including Africa. Frangipani flowers are most fragrant at night in order to lure sphinx moths to pollinate them. The flowers have no nectar, and simply dupe their pollinators. The moths inadvertently pollinate them by transferring pollen from flower to flower in their fruitless search for nectar.

In Asian folklore they provide shelter to ghosts and demons. The scent of the Plumeria has been associated with a vampire in Malay folklore, the pontianak. In several Pacific islands, such as Tahiti, Fiji, Samoa, Hawaii, New Zealand, Tonga and the Cook Islands Plumeria species are used for making  lei garlands. In modern Polynesian culture, it can be worn by women to indicate their relationship status - over the right ear if seeking a relationship, and over the left if taken. Bear this in mind for our next luau. You’ve been warned!