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Bright blossoms
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The brilliant blue colour makes the Kayambu flower truly unique. Though the flowering season is short, the leaves are evergreen. Therefore, it is an ideal plant to raise in one's garden.
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THE KAYAMBU is unique in its beauty because of its colour, which is a bright, brilliant blue. Over the ages, the genius of painters has failed to reproduce some colours of Nature on canvas. One such is Kayambu blue. Going by the scientific name Memecyion edule Roxb, the Kayambu produces small, numerous pedunculate flowers, which grow close and thick in the axils of fallen leaves, hiding the scars. The graceful, tall shrub becomes a tall tree bearing shining, elliptic, dark green leaves, four inches long and an inch-and-a-half wide. The leaves yield a yellow dye, popularly used on textiles before the days of chemical dyes. The stem is thin and cylindrical, with a light brown bark, decorated with vertical cracks. The wood is hard and even grained and is therefore preferred as supporting posts in a structure. It is also used to manufacture combs. The black, globose, two-seeded fruits are good to eat. The seeds germinate well.
The Kayambu flowers enjoy a short-lived bliss during the months of March, April and May. But, as the leaves are evergreen it adds a hue of permanent green to gardens. Seedlings collected from the forests are the best for propagation.
J. MANGALARAJ JOHNSON
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