The sight of little flowers, or the large ones, are daily affairs that is not difficult to miss if eyes are focused only on plant issues.
It is great to know that the largest single flower in the world, that is, the rafflesia flower which is the pride of Sabahans, is also found in Sabah, and this is made more joyous as one of the nearest places to see it is along the Penampang to Tambunan road, among several other localities within the state.
But plants bearing small flowers are also aplenty, particularly those smaller shrubs, ground huggers and climbers. Many of the little bloomers that produce small flowers also produce fruits of various sizes and colours, and serve an assortment of uses ranging from desserts, cooked dishes, decorative or medicinal functions.
If it is about a plateful of cherries, then it is altogether another matter. Although imported cherry fruits are much bigger and usually equivalent to large marbles of 2-3 cm diameter, those cherry-like fruits found growing naturally on plants within jungles or neglected lands or even within local urban greeneries are usually much smaller, measuring around 1 cm in diameter.
These appear to be like tiny marbles that kids in the past love to play on the ground with friends or family members.
One such plant is known as Manzanita or Barbados Cherry. This is a flowering and fruiting ornamental that is botanically identified as Malpighia glabra with its specific epithet of glabra being derived from Latin.
The meaning of the word is essentially glabrous which is associated with baldness, hairlessness or smoothness. Such a characteristic is clearly displayed in the baldness of the fruit cuticles and the leaf surfaces.
In fact, it is quite impossible to find even a single stalk of hair on the fruits and leaves.
Manzanitas originate within a huge zone in the West Indies, Southern United States Of America, and South America. The name of manzanita is Spanish for ‘little apple’ which is quite a precise description as the fruits do appear to be like apples although very much miniaturised.
The plant is a fruit bearing bloomer of small stature, usually reaching 3-5 metres in height. It prefers bright areas but does not grow as tall once they are lightly shaded such as those potted ones that are placed along balconies or beneath light trellises.
Such a botanical characteristic allow for the plant to be even better enjoyed by the grower or any plant lover to take a long gawk at the beautiful small flowers and the little roundish fruits.
Better still, it is possible to enjoy a bite or two of the fruits, that is, if they have not fallen to the ground or wolfed down by birds.
Fruits of manzanitas are small in size, glossy skinned and ripening to a pinkish red colour. Although the appearance of the fruit is appealing, the taste is quite sour and needs quite a period of pickling in a sweet honey liquid to be more appetizing.
Each flower comes in five petals with frilled edges in a range of colours from pink to rose to red with each petal being borne on thin slender stalks. The flower clusters are usually small in size with several individual flowers in each cluster.
They attract butterflies and birds especially the tiny humming birds that fly in during the late evenings nosing around for some nectar.
Leaves are all smooth and slightly glossy and are shaped like a lance head with a pointed tip. Each compound leaf carries 6-10 pairs or more of oppositely-set leaflets arranged in a flat plane.
They do not defoliate and as such, they are perennially evergreen.
This feature allows for them to be used often in growing dense screens or hedges to identify boundaries or borders, or as a wall to block snoopy eyes from penetrating into private affairs of neighbours.
The advantage of using manzanitas as border hedges or walls is that they are easy to trim into the desired heights or thickness without the need to employ oms or hedge trimming machines.
Manzanitas are also good ornamental bloomers that can be grown in pots that are easily moved around to meet decorative needs. The sizes of pots may be varied and may range from 20-60 cm in diameter.
They also make very good ground covers to green up unused spaces instead of allow lallang or other weeds to take over. Such mass plantings may have their heights easily varied by adjusting the intensity or depth of trimming.
Although the cultivation of manzanitas is an easy gardening task, the propagation of such a variety of plant is even easier. Of course one of the easiest ways is to collect the seeds and then sow them either directly into pots or else into a germination box from where the healthy seedlings may later be separated and then planted into polybags or pots.
Manzanitas may also be propagated using vegetative means such as taking stem or branch cuttings of lengths measuring 12-15 cm. These may then be set in boxes or large pots for rooting to take its course. Successfully rooted cuttings may be easy to identify with the new leaf sprouts appearing along the cutting.
Another easy way to propagate manzanitas is to separate the rooted stems that grow at the ground level at the base of parent plants. These are easy to remove by cutting off the well-rooted ones and then grown directly into pots.
The chances of survival of such cuttings is close to 100 per cent.
The above writer may be reached at: onggrow@yahoo.com
