A Tale of Two Queens

“Ah! then if mine had been the painter’s hand

To express what then I saw;”- (Wordsworth, Nature and the Poet)

You might have seen this plain and common cactus growing in a pot in many a home.  You may be surprised to find it growing in your own homes, may be as an indoor plant or in a small pot on your window sill or even in the balcony or terrace of your friend or neighbour. Wherever you may have seen it, it is common, nothing great to look at; just a cactus which you may not care to give a second glance. It generally remains unmarked, unnoticed. Oh just an insignificant, prickly cactus clump growing in some old and shabby pot!

We, too, did not notice ours much as it never really needed any care or attention. It proliferated on its own growing prickly tubercles and mounds till it kind of filled the pot. The areoles were made of brown hooked centrals with radial spines. It remained lost among the other more attractive plants which drew both attention and admiration with their beautiful foliage and blossoms. One day, while kind of emptying the last drops of water on it from the can as an afterthought, I was about to move on when I noticed what looked like a bud growing on it. I never gave another thought to it.

One morning, in mid-June, while trying to shut the window since the menacing clouds had gathered on the western and southern sky heralding the onset of monsoon and the first rains, I noticed this beautiful yellow flower with radiating star-like petals. The first blossom on my cactus in what seemed like ages! This uncared for, hardly ever admired plant had grown the most beautiful flower and I wanted to share it with everyone but by then all had left home. In a city like Mumbai people generally have to leave early to make it on time. Fortunately, my mother was still with me to share that priceless moment.

                                               

Later, in the afternoon, when I came to look at it again, the petals had begun to close up. This beautiful flower has a life of only five or six hours. All I could do was share a picture of it clicked on the cell phone with the others. After two or three years, the cactus again gave two beautiful blossoms but this time Ma, though lying there clinging on to the last thread of her life in a state of coma, was really not there to give me company. The Day Queen wilted away once again. The Creator had given it a life span of only a few hours.

I am waiting for it to bloom again. May be next year, or the year after, or when Mother Nature decides. Who knows who will be there to give me company when the Day Queen makes its brief appearance?

Later, I did some research on  the net, since I am no horticulturist or botanist, to find that, in all probability,  this plant is Mammillaria beneckei , a native of Mexico and South America, now found in our country too, popularly  known as  the pincushion cactus or nipple cactus because of the pin-like spikes and nipple like tubercles on it. The flowers bloom early in the morning to completely close up by afternoon once or twice in two or three years.

The Epiphyllum oxypetalum, also a native of Mexico and Sri Lanka, has another story to tell. It was brought into my house a year or so ago by mali bhai. He told me that in Marathi they called the plant Brahma Kamal and that it flowered once for one night only in the months of July to September. He added that it brought good luck and happiness to the household where it grew and they were truly blessed. During the entire summer this year, as I watered my plants through all phases of lockdown and unlocking, this plant, belonging to the family Cactaceae and commonly called Orchid Cactus, did not show any signs of flowering.It had succulent green leaves with serrated margins. What drew my attention was that one leaf grew out of another. In the height of summer, as some of the edges of the leaves were turning yellow, I thought it would not survive the season. 

Though I could see the clouds rising up every evening and gathering together to form a dark canopy, there was hardly any rain the whole of June this year. Then, all on a sudden, the heavens opened up the floodgates and the rains poured day and night. More than half the country was flooded. As July made way to August, the rains intensified and temperatures lowered. For days, as we opened our eyes to the grey, foggy mornings with clouds and rains all around, it felt as if we had been transported from this concrete jungle to some hill station in the Himalayas. This city suddenly became more bearable and pleasant. All around the foliage burst into different shades of green and the concrete blocks got a much needed shower.

This plant, which was more a cluster of leaves attached to each other on short stalks, has no stems or branches, too turned a beautiful shade of green and suddenly, one day, from one serrate margin of a leaf, a pendulous stalk grew a bud. For the entire week I kept observing the bud as it grew nice and big. Initially, it was hanging down and then the stalk bearing it slowly turned upwards and gradually grew out laterally.No wonder another name of this plant is the Dutchman’s Pipe.It was one of the largest buds I had ever seen on any plant.

One night, post dinner, while watching the news anchors on different channels blaring away in high pitched voices, clamouring for attention despite churning out the same old stories, SS got fed up and walked to the window to watch the rain instead. Next moment he rushed to get his cell phone and asked me to come to the window. I had not seen a flower of such size and beauty in a long time. The giant bud was just opening up. As the rains continued relentlessly, the Queen of the Night was spreading its petals in all its majestic beauty. By the time it fully flowered it was nearing mid-night. As it bloomed we could also take in its sweet and mesmerizing fragrance which helped to lure the nocturnal pollinators like the moth and insects. No wonder it is also known as Nishipadma and Nishagandhi in some parts of India. I was so excited that I could hardly sleep that night. I kept getting up to take one last look at this rare flower. By five in the morning we could see its petals closing up and by seven in the morning it had completed its life cycle.

Another variant of this magical flower, also called the Brahma Kamal (Saussurea obvallata), is a native of the Himalayas and grows in the northern states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. It is the State flower of Uttarakhand and is offered to the Lords Kedarnath and Badrinath by the devotees. This, too, is a nocturnal flower which blooms from dusk to dawn but, I believe, its smell is stronger and wilder, and its bud and blossom too show some variations. It belongs to the family of Asteraceae and grows at an altitude of 3000-4800 metres. The buds with their purplish tips are covered with layers of papery boat-shaped bracts to protect them from the cold winds and harsh climate of the mountains.

Innumerable legends and myths are associated with this Himalayan flower. Mythology has it that Lord Brahma, the Creator, uses the Brahma Kamal as his seat and holds one in the hand. Brahma, the Creator of the Universe, is also said to have been born from a huge white lotus. Another mythological story associates this flower with the birth of Lord Ganesha. When the head of the elephant was attached to the body of Ganesha, life restoring water was sprinkled from a huge lotus created by Lord Brahma. Legend also has it that in the epic Ramayana when Lakshman was revived by the herb sanjivani, the Lord showered flowers from heaven as blessings. These flowers took root and still grow in the Valley of Flowers in Uttarakhand. The plant is also attributed with medicinal properties by the locals.

May be, some day, while ticking off the bucket list, I will find myself on a trek to the Valley of Flowers and Hemkund Sahib Lake and come across a field of these sacred flowers growing on the grassy patches of the mountain slopes among the rocks and boulders.

DS