Skip to content
Grihvatika Knowledge Centre

Goals: Flowers & beauty

Foxtail Orchid (द्रौपदी माला), Rhynchostylis retusa
Arabian Jasmine

A pot by an open window does more for a summer evening than any air freshener.

Foxtail Orchid (द्रौपदी माला), Rhynchostylis retusa
Spanish Jasmine

The chameli of the perfume fields — long-tubed white flowers picked before dawn.

Foxtail Orchid (द्रौपदी माला), Rhynchostylis retusa
Rohida

The desert teak — orange trumpets on bare wood in March, on a tree that needs no water.

Foxtail Orchid (द्रौपदी माला), Rhynchostylis retusa
Oleander

Pink or white flowers all year on a shrub that survives the worst urban roadside.

Foxtail Orchid (द्रौपदी माला), Rhynchostylis retusa
Yellow Oleander

Narrow willow leaves and yellow bells; tough, fast and equally poisonous.

Foxtail Orchid (द्रौपदी माला), Rhynchostylis retusa
Hamelia

Orange tubular flowers, continuously, and the sunbirds that follow them.

Foxtail Orchid (द्रौपदी माला), Rhynchostylis retusa
Chinese Hibiscus

Flowers nearly all year in a warm city, and sunbirds find it within a week.

Foxtail Orchid (द्रौपदी माला), Rhynchostylis retusa
Shoe Flower Hedge

A hardier deciduous hibiscus for the hills, flowering through the monsoon.

Foxtail Orchid (द्रौपदी माला), Rhynchostylis retusa
Mussaenda

One enlarged white sepal per flower, so the whole shrub reads as pale bracts.

Foxtail Orchid (द्रौपदी माला), Rhynchostylis retusa
Duranta

Blue flower sprays and orange berries at once; the standard clipped Indian hedge.