This was the fourth seedling to flower from seeds collected from an opened half pod outside our town library in 2003. The first year's foliage was also rather surprising for me, as it was the first time I'd run on with seeds from Plumeria Obtusa. Now, years later, I have come to expect almost anything from these amazing evergreens.

The image on the left is a close-up of the foliage on this seedling at exactly 1 year old. This picture was posted on our Frangipani Society of Australia website, at the time, and early members will still remember it, I'm sure. Back then, we all found it rather surprising, but we live and learn...don't we?

Absolutely! This particular seedling was grown from a seed from Brisbane Botanical Gardens, at the time of Frangi-Fest, 2005, and is one of about a dozen my friend Gail Pascoe, from Mandurah, brought up for me to grow on, two years back. Whether you want to call it plumeria filifolia or sericifolia is up to you.

In fact they have produced a number of slightly different new shrubs (they don't grow like traditional trees). This one seems close to the original mother-tree, so I have included it here. A variety of perfumes have been produced, including vanilla essence, gardenia and Yardley's Lily-of-the-Valley toilet water, which all seem to come within the general 'evergreen' range of smells to date.

Here's another filifolia/sericifolia seedling. My understanding is that these were once thought to be different species, so got different names. In fact, if anyone can be bothered to gather seeds from both, and grow them on, they will find that each produces the same variations, even within a single pod. The shades of 'white' can range from stark, bluey white through to cream. I include them both here.

Sorry, not a very swish name, as yet, but this tree, many-branched and a stronger pink in mid-summer, is another of the results of my early Singapore Evergreen (T = target tree) crossings. Here you can see that the leaves are much wider again, though still dark and leathery. Perfume is close to Singapore Evergreen with a sweet overlay (vanilla-ish?).

It was indeed a proud day for me when my first Pudica seedling began to bloom on 18th January 2007, at 18 months from setting the seed in soil.

Florida Plumeria grower Luc very kindly sent me a pod of seeds from one of his trees, and I set them all to germinate in an oblong planter. Interestingly, there have been slight variations within the trees I ultimately grew from these seeds. Some grew taller, faster, and others grew more slowly, and with more sideways branching. To date a total of four of the twenty have a clear vanilla essence perfume, and one of these, REALLY strong and sweet. The Pudica you will purchase from a shop in Australia will have no perfume at all.