Thursday, September 15, 2011

To Clear One's Heart

I can't stay away from the Ylang-Ylang tree. The last time I talked about it is here. I have shown its flowers many times, but you have never seen the entire tree. So here it is.

As I said in 2007, hurricane Wilmar chopped its head off in 2005, and I thought that was the end of its life, but it came back miraculously all by itself. You can see the place where the new trunk resumed its growth. No surgeon I know could have repaired such severe a cut as nature has done here. Let's see, it's about 40 feet high now so it has grown 36 feet in 6 years. The growth was about 6 feet/year. It is not easy to get to the flowers higher up, but the scent diffuses and spreads around the tree's perimeter in a seductive way that makes this tree famous and romantic. It is well known that Cananga odorata, the Ylang-Ylang as that is its scientific name, has many medicinal uses. Do you also know that it is cooling and it can clear heat from the heart? I like that!
Hoang Lan

1 comment:

Rational νεόφυτος said...

My wife is a nut for ylang-ylang essential oil - it's got a nice smell, too.