Flowers, Part 10: Adenium Obesum - The Desert Rose

Those of you who have played "Concentration" in one form or another will understand the challenge of seeing a specific item and then later having to remember it and match it with a new one to get the point. I'm terrible at that game. I figure it's my lack of matching skills and not merely my memory fading as I stumble through the last years I can squeeze out of middle age without having to do that "I'm only 39" thing.  That might not be the case, but it's the story I'm sticking to.

That said, I don't have a recollection for a lot of the flowers I take pictures of in Thailand. Oh, sure - I usually ask someone what they're called, and sometimes even try to write it down phonetically on a sweaty piece of paper from my shirt pocket, but notes get lost, and things I'm told vanish into the ether even faster.  The flower up top is a form of Adenium Obesum (aka a Desert Rose) and I remember that because I'd noted "chuan chom" on a scrap of paper and looked it up later.

It's believed to have arrived in Thailand from Indonesia, and since then it has spread freely throughout the country. You'll see the small, trumpet blooms in gardens, courtyards, bright indoor areas and often as various forms of bonsai; some traditionally small, and some much larger, such as the example at the end of the post today, taken at a small temple in a public park in Udonthani. You're also likely to see them in many other places, and they are beautiful blooms, I think.

Anyway,  I suppose that today's early Christmas miracle was that I was able to remember the single temple shot with the flowering plant in it from seven years ago, find the image and post it below.  Whew. Must be nap time.