Amber's Travel and Life Adventures: Flowers of Asia

As many of you following this blog know, I'm a ~bit~ of a flower lover and I take a LOT of photos of flowers wherever I go. Here my series of flower photos from various countries and locations in Asia:

First, the frangipani was blooming everywhere and gave a sweet, perfumed scent to the air in the evenings and early mornings:

(Koh Samed, Thailand)

The lotus grows everywhere and is considered a sacred flower for the both Buddhists and Hindus:

(Bangkok, Thailand)

(Koh Samed, Thailand)

(Phnom Penh, Cambodia)

The lotus leaves also give rise to the "lotus effect". For those of you who don't know, it's an awesome phenomenon that arises from having nano-sized hairs on the surface of the leaf that creates a high radius of curvature for water droplets, thus repelling liquids. This is the basis for stain-resistant clothing you see on the market today!

A random purple bush in front of a buddhist temple in Bangkok:

(Bangkok, Thailand)

Hibiscus are also popular and come in many beautiful shapes and colors:

(Tioman island, Malaysia)

The next four photos are trees we also have in Bangladesh but they're usually too tall for me to get good photos of the flowers. Here are two color versions (orange and red)--they're in the legumaceae family (same as peas and beans) and have large pod-shaped seed structures in addition to their beautiful and elegant blooms:

(Angkor Wat, Cambodia)

(cambodia)

This yellow version has particularly beautiful cascading bunches of flowers....

(cambodia)

And another bean-family tree with beautiful red flowers:

(cambodia)

These next two photos are of a sacred flower, called ShivaLinga flower outside a temple in Thailand--I saw them outside many Buddhist and Hindu temples--Buddha liked to meditate under these trees. The flowers are very interesting and pretty:

(Thailand)

A Gloriosa lily:

(Tioman Island, Malaysia)

The next is a wonderfully fragrant, if not especially beautiful bush they use to make flower garland offerings at hindu temples. I don't know the name of it, but always stopped to smell it when I saw it growing.....

(Sihanoukville, Cambodia)

A mystery tree on the street--pretty, not especially fragrant but hanging right at eye level asking for a photo to be taken:

(Siem Reap, Cambodia)

A hanging vine I saw lots of places with HUGE flowers:

(tioman island, Malaysia)

For those of you wondering about how mangos grow, here is their flower on the left (small, unattractive) and the growing, unripe fruit on the right. They grow on large trees and are coming into season now in Asia--yay mangoes!

(Tioman Island, Malaysia)

And a palm tree in various stages of flower, fruit and seed. Palms come in so many varieties--I wish I knew more about them. Coconut palms, date palms, oil palms, some palms have sweet fruit, etc. etc. I don't know what this next one is, but it had an interesting form!

(Tioman island, Malaysia)

A mystery bush I found growing in a tidal mangrove area near the mouth of a river on the coast of Malaysia:

(Mersing, Malaysia)

I ~think~ the common name for these is the spider lily--they're everywhere next to sidewalks, etc.--very nice form and hardy!

(Tioman Island, Malaysia)

This next bush had beautifully-shaped flower structures that were quite large--2-3 feet tall!

(Tioman island, Malaysia)

There were lots of Heliconia species I saw throughout my trip--here's one example:

(Tioman island, Malaysia)

I've seen this next large bush/small tree many places before--I think my grandma calls it the Princess Tree--beautiful, showy large flowers in a great color!