Adrienne, from Plains Mennonite Church, and her husband Adam recently started a MCC term of service in Burundi. I’ve been enjoying following her blog and I was inspired by her recent post on botanicals in which she shared her appreciation for the Plumeria.

In Southeast Asia, Plumeria are commonly referred to as Frangipani in English. In Khmer, Plumeria are called ចំប៉ី, which sounds like Champey.

In Cambodia Frangipani are traditionally considered a deeply spiritual flower that’s associated with death, mourning, and loyalty. The Cambodian myth is that a girl stood over the grave of her lover until she died and then she was reincarnated as a Frangipani, continuing to cry tears of flowers over her lover’s grave. I have the impression that, based on how this myth is told, the act of mourning is considered more beautiful than the relationship being mourned. So, even though Frangipani are associated with death here, it’s not in an ominous way. Frangipani flowers also have the local nickname of loyalty flowers.

There is an absolutely beautiful Frangipani tree at the Wat Botum park in Phnom Penh. Charlotte loves the mango tree at our house – if you ask she will tell you that it belongs to her – but this colossal Frangipani is still her favorite tree in city. It was her favorite in Cambodia before we visited Siem Reap but not many trees can compete with the ones at Ta Prohm.

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We have two Frangipani at our house. The larger of the two belongs to our landlord. He has it out on the street in a large pot and it has grown tremendously over the last year.

The Frangipani’s growth is impressive because we thought it was going to die soon after we moved in. Our neighbor planted a row of four Frangipani that were afflicted with Frangipani rust. This fungal plant disease soon hopped across the street to infect the one outside our house. Fortunately, it managed to recover from the initial infection – when all of its leaves were infected with thick layers of rust – but, despite help from us, it’s never been able to completely shake off the rust. It doesn’t help that the rust keeps on being shared back and forth with the Frangipani across the street.

At least here, the fungal rust only seems to affect Frangipani and hasn’t spread to any other plants. This is probably due to Frangipani’s unusual toxicity- like it’s relative the Milkweed, the sap of the Frangipani is poisonous.

The other Frangipani at our house belongs to MCC and sits on a sunny corner of our top floor balcony. I was surprised when it flowered because the flowers definitely don’t have that classic Frangipani look but someone did once tell me it was a hybrid. Actually, Google just lead me to believe that this isn’t a Frangipani at all but another plant in the Apocynaceae family, the Adenium Obesum? I need a plant expert to chime in.

The Plumeria is native to Mesoamerica but arrived in Southeast Asia a very long time ago. The Plumeria has long been planted at pagodas, temples, and graveyards across the region. It’s been incorporated into Hindu beliefs in eastern India and Bangledesh. It is the national flower of our neighbor to the north, Laos. The Borobudur and Penataran temples on the island of Java in Indonesia have reliefs featuring Plumeria. This challenges some common narratives around the discovery of the “new world” as Borobudur was constructed in the 9th century and Penataran in the 14th century. Along these lines; there was a interesting study recently showing genetic evidence that Polynesians and a group of Native Americans, most closely related genetically to present day indigenous Colombians, intermarried in the 12th century.