JAVANESE & INDONESIAN

TAPAK DÓRÓ | Indonesian name: tapak dara

The name means 'footprints of the doves'. This shrub has no monetary value in Java, i.e. no florist sells them, and the plant itself can't be bought anywhere. If you want to grow some in your garden, you have to scan people's yards and ask for them before the local dogs start to chase you out of the premises.

GANYÓNG | Indonesian name: kana

Some said this year-round flower came from the Caribbeans. Maybe so, but this has been the ingredient of any Javanese garden since hundreds of years ago, and growing by themselves at rural roadsides and neglected fields. It isn't for sale, either, except in big cities where everything is.

BAKUNG | Indonesian name: bunga bakung

Another 'wild flower of Java', or so said some tourists; like the previous two, this isn't commoditized in Java.

It is this flower that the Indonesian Bible refers to in translating the famous words of -- I forgot whom -- "even the lilies of the field, which don't toil and don't weave, are dressed more beautifully than the concubines of King Solomon", or something to that effect.

You can call this plant 'spider-lily', too, if I'm not mistaken. Probably I'm not. I'm better in recalling stuff that has nothing to do with Jesus.

KANTHIL

There is no Indonesian name for this flower plant. Most Indonesians don't even know it exists; and to the Javanese it is an archaic sort of living thing that should have belonged to wherever people keep skeletons of T-Rex, if only it doesn't live.

In the good old days, this flower was made into some perfume by people working for the Javanese kings.

Until 1970's, it was still an ingredient of the animistic offering.

Now it's just a rare greeny stuff. Needless to say, it isn't to be found being sold anywhere in this country.

ÈNCÈNG GÓNDHÓK | Indonesian name: eceng gondok

This thing grows in lightspeed wherever it is tossed into, as long as the place is a body of water. So Indonesians in general treat it as a hazard and pestilential plant rather than anything good, until 1990.

In 1990's some 'experts' in gardening and such -- Indonesia never has a Martha Stewart, thank God -- started to campaign for this plant as a civilized garden element.

Its light violet (color of the flowers) is beautiful, like a transparent watercolor stroke; but that's not why the Central Javanese never complained about this plant choking up their waterways even when the Jakartanese did loudly everyday. The whole plant have been harvested, beaten and dried and made into materials of Central Javanese handicrafts since 1980's.

According to some source (I), you may call this 'water hyacinth'.

SOKA | Indonesian name: angsoka

Dwarfed and sold in large pots, that's what this Javanese flowers' fate these days. It happens since 1990's. Before that, soka grew into large trees on their own in people's old-fashioned gardens. The other color of the flowers is white.

KÓCÓPIRING | Indonesian name: kacapiring

The name means 'china' as in dining plates and bowls, or, if anglicized literally, 'glass plates'. In some places it is called 'gardenia'.

This plant was probably among the cargo the Javanese downloaded from Chinese vessels in 1200's. It's more beautiful than roses, and the smell is greater, too, and certainly stronger -- you can sniff it from a mile away, or so it seems.

Real kacapiring is a tree. A tall, bushy tree, whose height is approximately the same as that of anyone in the Chicago Bulls, except the coach.

But this plant isn't related to anything financial.

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