Stopping by for the familiar flowers

Cosmos sulphureus in our midst. Always present to delight us whether you take notice or not.

In my recent posts to the CDFP (Co's Digital Flora of the Philippines), I focused on the ordinary and the familiar plants seen just around the corner of the Poblacion. It is not because I have not done much of forest and mountain trekking lately to get more photos of the rare and unique Bulusan flora but because I believe that  these common and familiar plants  need also the attention it deserve. They have been around for hundreds or more years in our hometown and no one has even bothered or even had the time to stop and know more about them except of course the local parabolong (folkloric herbal healers). However, their focus are more on the medicinal plants not the ordinary ornamentals commonly seen around in rural homes and gardens.

One of these plants is the cosmos (photos) flowering profusely it seems all-year round and displaying colors of varying yellows along the road, in backyards, in churchyard, in cemeteries - almost everywhere. When I was still in my grade school years, we used to call these flowers as 'kosmos' with the additional description  typically coming from innocent yet irreverent kids : 'an burak na mahangot' (the flower that has this unpleasant smell). Fast forward to this week - I tried smelling  these  flowers at the church yard but it seems that the variety growing now-a-days has a neutral scent or it was just my sense of smell failing me this time?

Back to my post at CDFP - a member, expert in identifying names of ornamentals in the Philippines described  the flowering plant as not native  but imported from the tropical Americas. Scientific name according to another member is Cosmos sulphureus. The family was already submitted by me : Family Asteraceae. The probability that the Acapulco-Philippines galleon route three to four hundred years ago has something to do with this flowering plant is not remote. Who knows? All we know is that these flowers were in our midst for as long as our lola (grandmothers) can remember. Perhaps  these flowers are as old as the town itself.

Photos by Alma P. Gamil
Bulusan, Sorsogon
Philippines