Walking Down the Road with Studs of Wild Flowers

"Bloom where you are planted." - Saint Francis de Sales

I have been walking along this road all my life. I have seen the changes along the way. When new houses were built or demolished or when street lights were installed,or how the climate and weather flooded or caused drought on the land. I have seen the trees and grasses lived and expired.

Many has changed over the course of time but what I have noticed is that many persisted. One of those are the grasses bearing wild flowers. They are growing along the side of the road, on a vacant lot, on the hills or on unutilized ricefields. They grow wherever or whenever possible.

Some of these grasses were part of my childhood memories. We used to play with these grasses. They were the ingredients of our cooking recipe, as we play bahay-bahayan (play house), the ring and bracelets that adorned our small and fragile hands and wrist, or that flowers we used as ornament for our tousled hair.

I find it funny how some of these grasses got their names. Mostly because of their physical attributes.

In our place this grass is called bukot-bukot. Bukot in the Bisaya dialect means cover/wrap . As you can see the beautiful flower is covered in a net-like structure before it opened its flower. The net-like structure will stay even as the flower opens. When the flowers becomes a fruit it will again be covered by the structure. The fruit of this grass is edible. I cannot remember if I tried this but I remembered my playmates eat the fruit of this plant.

Standing out in the green lush of grasses is this orange colored flower. We call it utot-utot flower. Utot is a Filipino word which means flatulence. From the name itself you can already infer how this flower smells. Though its beauty is a head turner but the name could be a turn off 😂. Well, it doesn't really smell so bad but it doesn't smell good as well unlike most flowers usually are.

The makahiya or touch me not plant has a flower that looks like pompoms. The plant may be sensitive to touch but not the flower. Whenever I see a mkahiya plant I would touch all its leaves until everything closes. And I have fun doing it even when I am an adult already, I just can't let go of that habit of teasing the makahiya plant.🤭. Makahiya comes from the root word "hiya" means shame.

This cute little white flowers are like the stars that fall down from the night sky and during the day, these studs of beauty shines on the ground. We used to picked these little beauty and adorn our tousled, black hairs. A bunch of these would make a miniature boquet. I do not know the names of this grass and I am not sure if the people had a name for these beauties. If you are to name this flower, what would it be?

And here's a lavender-colored flower from a grass I do not know the name. The flowers stick to a column-like structure. The little flowers group together on one area of the column which makes the flower unique and different from the flowers I usually see in the surroundings.

Here's another flower for the lavender lovers. I found this grass with tiny lavender-colored flowers that looked like candles in a branched candle holders. I could hardly take a focus shot of these flowers because they are tiny.

I am having a blast of lavender colors with yet another lavender -colored flower. But unlike the other flowers, this one have large flowers. These flowers only blooms in the morning. In the afternoon the flowers close. It's glory you can witness only in the morning. It is nice to catch these during an early morning walk when they are in their most beautiful form.

And what is a flower without the butterflies? Well, they are still amazingly beautiful. But we all know that flowers are the reproductive organ of plants. Butterflies would be the catalyst to reproduction therefore the continuation of life and existence of these grass species. So here's a photo of resting butterfly looking accomplished for the day's grind. This little butterly was not even bothered when I took a photo of it.

These flowers may not be as valued as other flowers. They are just grasses that grows anywhere but if you look closely and give attention they are equally beautiful like any other flowers. While at the moment some women maybe walking down the aisle with the most beautiful flowers meticulously picked and decorated along the aisle, I am walking along this road almost everyday with studs of beautiful flowers that nature has picked for everyone to see.