Bunja Telang/Blue Pea flower/Butterfly Pea

The Blue Pea is more commonly known by its local name, Bunja Telang. Its botanical name is clitoria ternatea.

I hunted for pots of this plant when my Garden started out as I wanted to have a plant that provided natural colouring. Have you seen Nonya kueh with artificial blue colouring? Yech.

I once left a dried flower in my bermuda pocket. Took me a while to figure out how the bermuda got that blue stain when I was hanging up the laundry.

As my Garden fence was in need of some tidying up, I decided yesterday to clear out a big bush of Blue Pea.

Armed with garden shears and garden cutters, I went ahead today.

Unfortunately, I started just before 7pm so it got dark soon.

45 minutes later (and a lot of sneezing), having cleared out a sizeable part of the bush, I had a handful of flowers and two big handful of seed pods.

The calyx were removed and the petals will be brought to my office to dry out (it is 45% humidity). It is the single-petalled variety.

That leaves (pun unintended) the pods. Quite a number seem old and there aren’t many freshly dried pods (sounds like an oxymoron). I will be shelling the pods and plant the seeds. It is a lot of them but I don’t think many will strike. I could be wrong. They do look old…

The good news (or bad) is that there is still two-thirds of the bush left.

**faint**

I have to look out for the double-petalled variety I planted in the Garden a year or so ago. And I truly suspect that there IS the white variety on another part of the fence. It would be wonderful to be able to have all types of Bunga Telang.

It is a pity that I cannot find my camera or there would be pictures of what I did today. No problemo. Plenty of photos when I finally find my camera (I suspect it is in my office) and start clearing out the remaining bush.

Later I have to go find my friend, Michael who owns a kueh shop at Amoy Hawker Centre to see whether he wants my dried petals…