Jute Plant

I found this plant when I was clearing the messy herb bushes. My neighbour told me that it is called the Jute plant. Someone in the neighbourhood would come in and eat the leaves raw. However the red fruits cannot be eaten even though they are lovely to look at.

Shamrock from Greenculture identified this plant as Corchorus capsularis and on reading the Wikipedia I understand that the leaves of this plant are rich in anti-oxidants.
Read more about the plant here ..

http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Corchorus+capsularis

Physalis minima (Bladder Cherry)

This bladder cherry plant was not suppose to grow in this planter bed but somehow it was left alone to grow till this big. It has flowered and you can see the fruits hanging there. Meanwhile the older bladder cherry plant is dying of root rot in another part of the garden.
The scientific name of this plant is the Physalis species and the neighbourhood children who came to help in the garden sometimes pick the orange cherries to eat. I also recognised that the fruits when dried are used as cake decorations.

You can read more about the plant here ....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physalis

Artemisa sp. (Wormwood)

My neighbour bought this plant as a baby from one of the plant nurseries and the sales person told her that it was a Dill plant. After a year of growth .... when I first saw it ... it was taller than 1.52 meters. A Dill plant doesn't grow so tall .... it may reach a maximum height of maybe 60 cm at the most. This is what most plant experts call the false dill .... the plant scientific name called Artemisia species ( Artemisia californica). I also noticed that the plant is situated in the middle of the planting bed and somehow the plants growing on either side of it die after a while.

At this time the plant produced numerous white little flowers which seem to float in the air when disturbed. Knowing that whenever a plant flowers, it is a signal that it may die. So I trimmed the bush down to half it's original height, cutting away all the flowering parts. I'm wondering whether I should relocate this plant to a corner of the planting bed instead of letting it continue to grow in the centre.

Read all about the Wormwood plants here ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_(plant)#Selected_species

African Leaves

My neighbour brought back a stem cutting of this plant from a monastery in Penang where she went for meditation about a year ago. The cutting has grown big and tall and then she planted some more cuttings near the fence. She calls them the African Leaves and she has never seen flowers being produced by this plant. She uses the leaves and boils them to drink and also uses the dried leaves to make a tea concoction. She used to have high cholesterol and high blood pressure and after drinking the potion boiled from these leaves she said that she doesn't suffer from high cholesterol and high blood pressure anymore. So far, this plant has not been identified yet ... anyone can help me identify it?

Gossyplum barbadense (Cotton Plant)

I found this growing in the Passionfruit Cover. There are two of them at the moment. It is also know as the Eygptian Cotton, Creole Cotton and the scientific name is Gossyplum barbadense.
Read more about it here http://tropilab.com/gossyp-bar.html

6/3/09 update .... the cotton fruits are seen this time round ...so white and can be fluffy too but I took the pic after a rainfall .... so you see it's the cotton is rather dense.

Laurentia longiflora (Star of Bethleham)

Found this plant growing somewhere below the medicinal herb bushes. It has the name in the title of this post and is also called Laurentia longiflora. I understand that the leaves of this plant release an irritating sap and the plant is pretty poisonous.
You can read all about this plant here
http://ntbg.org/plants/plant_details.php?plantid=11854

Triphasia trifolia (Limeberry)

This plant is grown near the shadiest part of the garden. The scientific name is Triphasia trifolia.
It produces red berries which can be eaten. However I read that this plant grows well in sunlight and it seemed to be in the wrong part of the garden. The plant is still a tiny bush producing a few fruits only.
Read all about it here http://www.tropilab.com/lime-ber.html