Tuesday, January 31, 2012

what is there outside my bedroom window

Pelbagai jenis pokok bunga yang berbau wangi.

Among others:
The name of the tree in Malay is bunga kenanga.




Also known as kenongo (jawa), makosoi (Fiji), Cadenia (Spanish) or in Latin: Nacagium odoratum bail







Kenanga gives out a very soft sweet nice smell.  Well, it's an understatement. 


When I first decided to have this flower, I only knew it has a very nice smell.  Never once it cross my mind that it is categorised as herbal plant.  Yup, it is actually a herbal plant.  The flower can be used, among others as remedy for breathlessness (rapid breathing?), asthma and malaria (boil the flower, add in sugar, further boil until 1/3 then drink twice daily). 

I 'use' it as aromatherapy.  I purposely put it outside my bedroom window so that whenever the wind blows, I can smell them.  I read once, I do not remember from a fiction or a history book that during the peak of 'Abbasiyyah era, every houses has a garden that was full with flowers.  They slept at night with doors and windows open, letting in the smell of the flowers sway them into tight sleep, without worrying their house would be break in - as they were no robbers as everybody was well off! That was when the Khalifah was really an Amir and that muslims paid zakat and gave sadaqah.  

And according to a few pages on herbal malay flowers stated that this flower, also known as Ylang Ylang (! only know this today) is also good for those having problem with their menstrual cycle.  MasyaAllah, alhamduliLlah.

p/s:  I will picture the flower in daylight tomorrow, insyaAllah.

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