Coral Bean Tree

When I looked out the bedroom door this morning, the ground was wet! It wasn't exactly a raging downpour, but it was definitely rain, not fog--highly unusual for August. It has been overcast all day, and , for once, I have actually enjoyed it!

My neighbors, Cindy and Ann and I went back to The Gardener today for a little field trip. Although the garden looks a little unkempt and unruly, closer inspection of what is growing there, especially with Ann, who is a landscaper and knows the names of everything, reveals a lot of care and thought.

There was a Buddha's Hand, citrus medica var. sacrodactylis. It is a thick skinned citrus variety with long "fingers", used predominantly in China and Japan for its fragrance for perfuming rooms and clothing. The "fingers" can be sliced and used in salads, although it seems somehow sacrilegious to be slicing off the Buddha's fingers. It is used as an offering, but the "closed hand" version, with the fingers straight and pressed together is the preferred form, since that is the form the Buddha's hand takes when he is praying.

The Clemais tangutica, with yellow lantern shaped flowers one to two inches wide, is equally eye catching at this time of year for its silvery seed heads, rather like towheaded children or an old man's beard. Clematis comes in hundreds of varieties in many shapes and colors. We had a pink one that grew prolifically on our back fence in Berkeley.

There was a huge oak tree, beautifully trimmed, dropping acorns with loud reports on the corrugated tin roof of the indoor shop, a thickly shaded persimmon tree arcade full of green fruit, and a huge zinnia bed, but the showstopper was today's picture, Erythrina bidwiilii. Ten feet tall with flowers a up to a foot long, it grows in the Southern Hemisphere. Often planted on the burial mound of Zulu kings, its red torch like blooms signaled the beginning of the harvest.

There are many delights inside too, but I restrained myself after the purchase of our cypress trunk/concrete top table. It was a lovely break from the normal routine.