Purplicious

I'm so excited now that flower fest is back. Apart from inspiring me to go look for wildflowers, this blog gets a new lease on life.

In this round of FF, like the last time, I'm going to try as much as possible to send in entries of wildflowers. First up is purple and here are my two entries.

The first one is Wild Brinjal or Purple Fruited Pea Eggplant



Brinjal is a plant from the family Solanaceae, native to India and Sri Lanka. The wild plant has large prickly leaves and star shaped flowers that are white or purple. The Wild Brinjal has berry like fruit with tiny numerous seeds. This particular plant did not have any, else I would have scavenged some, as we like to eat it cooked with onion, tomato, tamarind and other Indian spices. I think the berries are used in Thai cooking well.


My second entry is the Crown Flower or Giant Milkweed from the family Asclepiadaceae.

Commonly found growing in fields and ditches, the plant has flowers growing in clusters with each flower containing five petals with a crown in the center.


The plant attracts small birds, a number of insects and butterflies. The flowers bloom throughout the year, but are abundant in the summer months. This type of Milkweed is native to India. I took these pictures on my morning walk.

I'm sending these to this month's FF.











PS I'm going to pretend like I've never been away!

Raddhiwalla with a business card!

A funny thing happened to me this morning. Well, not funny in the ha ha sense, just something which made me see how technology has reached everyone in India. I opened the door to accept a letter from the courier boy, when I noticed a raddhi walla taking the month's recycling from the opposite house.

I wanted to get rid of the growing pile of old newspapers from my house, but had to step out to do some errands, so asked him when he would be coming next. Immediately he whipped out his business card with the address and four different mobile numbers neatly printed on it. He told me all I had to do was to give him a call and he would come with a scale to weigh the junk and clear it all away. Now that's something I don't see everyday - a radhiwalla with a business card!

Charlotte to Chennai

Chennai is what I will call home now.

We arrived late, after midnight, in this new city and tired went straight to sleep. I was woken early morning by the loud song of the kukooo. I got up, grabbed my camera and took a few pictures. It had rained in the night and everthing looked fresh and clean. Soon I saw the bright colors of dawn and then the constant parade of birds began. I was surprised. I expected to see only crows in this teeming metro but boy! was I happy that I was proved wrong.

Flower Fest - W for Wisteria

In May this year, I got to spend a delightful afternoon in the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Despite the bustling tourist activity, I had a good time. While walking around the well maintained garden, with its manicured bushes, trees and stone sculptures, I spied these beautiful hanging Wisteria.

Wisteria is a climbing vine with purple-blue flowers that hangs down like a bunch of grapes. It flowers in the beginning of spring. We had plenty growing in our neighbourhood too, but it did not occur to me to take pictures. I was busy looking for spring wildflowers then!


Google tells me that this plant is not very popular as it is invasive and suffocates other native plants, which in turn affects wildlife who depend on these native plants for food.

This is my entry for the letter W at Flower Fest

Flower Fest - V for Vicia sativa (Common Vetch)

Another flower that I found growing, un-welcomed, on the sidewalk outside my house, is my entry for V. Common vetch, as Vicia sativa is commonly called, is a weed that grows on roadsides and fields. It is a small plant with attractive purple-pink flowers from the pea family.

I find the delicate plant beautiful to look at and love the tiny flowers. The leaves are a lovely shade of green growing on stems that taper off into tendrils. The flowers bloom from April to August and are very attractive to bees and butterflies.

This is my entry for the letter V at Flower Fest

Somethings Blue

Pacific Ocean near Big Sur

A Western Scrub Jay, in California

Pal Payasam -followed the step by step guide from Manisha!

Sunset on Lake Calhoun

I recently had the opportunity to go sailing in an old sailboat on Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis. I got a brief sailing lesson and did pretty well i.e. the sailboat stayed afloat and went in the general direction of land. That's enough achievement for a day, for me!


It was magical to watch the sun. It painted the sky in vivid colours as it slowly disappeared out of sight. My pictures don't do justice at all to the wonderful sunset I witnessed.
It was a glorious end to a beautiful day. Sigh!