Pandan Flower

Thrilled to have run into this gorgeous Karen Hill tribe lady at the border with Burma, who had a wonderful way of folding Pandan leaves into a flower shape. The fragrant Pandan is a purely cultivated plant, (no wild version has been found apparently) and is grown throughout Southeast Asia, mainly used in cooking to give more flavour and colour for deserts, coconut rice and our famous nasi lemak in Singapore and Malaysia and beyond. We used to make a knot with the young scented leaves for our rooms and linen cabinets, to give a wonderful perfume fitting our tropical climate. To twist and turn the Pandan leaves into a flower shape as shown here releases its fragrant smell perfectly. It makes a great looking ground cover in my gardens and grows equally well as a water plant or at the edge of ponds.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• pandan
• flower
• pandanus amaryllifolium
• Thailand
• Mae Hong Song
• Hans Hoefer