Living in Shimla, one often takes this humble bush for granted. For all of Septmeber and now, when e are well into October, this pretty blue plant is dotting the road-sides, clinging to hill-sides, creating a veritable sea of blue in the woods. At first glance, I thought these were gentians. But my favourite website on flowers Flowers of India clarifies that this is not so.
These flowers actually bleong to the blue trumpet bush, also known as strobilanthes tomentosa. I've seen it grow in the woody, partially-lit slopes of the Sheogh woods, in Chaura Maidan and also near the United Service Club on Jakhoo Hill. It grows up to almost four feet in height. The leaves appeared very interesting: dark green on top and white on the underside.
The flower, as you can see in the picture, is shaped like a trumpet and stands at a 90-degree angle to its stem. It has a narrow tube which widens a little as it goes upward, finally opening into five round petals.
What a joyous aspect: little trumpets of bright blue, silently blowing the last clarion call of spring even as it is over and autumn steals upon us quietly, with a red melancholy....
The sight of these flowers brought to mind that wonderful Mary Oliver poem:
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking,
about the exceptional.
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
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