LATIN: Gloriosa superba 'Rothschildiana'

GOOD FOR: Drama kings and queens who make mountains out of molehills. People who are emotionally out of control. Hooking too much into one's emotional array without THINKING through anything before they act or react.

DID YOU KNOW:

The way you learn is by taking personal risks. There is a real need for actual "hands-on" experience in order to absorb what you are learning. Turned off by the class room, you may be antsy, restless and unable to learn much at all in that environment. ADD and ADHD children and adults are found to have red anthers.

THE HEALTHY YOU:

Mentally, your mind clips along at a very high rate of speed; as a consequence, you may get the answer first without being able to show how you arrived at that answer. You can become impatient with people who do not think or make decisions as fast as you can.

THE UNHEALTHY YOU:

Leaving school early because it is too boring may occur. You need a lot of experiential activities to keep you interested. Vocational school should be considered. Because you act impulsively before thinking entirely through a process and making a lot of mistakes as a result, you need to learn to slow down and think through something fully, first.

OTHER:

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE GLORIOSA LILY

BLOOM: The bud will form and grow longer (horizontally). When it's ready to open, it takes 24 hours for it to do so. The bloom always hangs DOWN. As it opens, the petals begin to move upward. After it is fully open (about 12 hours) the petals are straight out from the center of the flower (no longer drooping and hanging downward). In the next 12 hours, the petals become WAVY and move up and BACK of the pistils/stamens center of the flower.

You can visualize this as a Concorde jet, which has its wings forward and straight out from the fuselage for take off, but as it hits Mach 2, the wings go BACK to make the jet supersonic and faster.

Such is the Gloriosa Lily blooming process.

The color of the bloom is GREEN. As it matures, it will take on maroon vertical coloring on each petal in the closed position. As it opens, the petals lengthen considerably (we're talking massive, swift growth here of a petal that was originally one inch long at opening and growing to 2 to 2 1/2 inches long in a 24 hour period after opening--that is exceedingly FAST!).

And at the same time, the colors change from GREEN to YELLOW. And from MAROON (violet/purple range) to RED.

The bloom remains strong and vibrant for FIVE days. On the sixth day, the petals come out of their BACK position to one of being straight out from the plant (as it did in the blooming process). Within this 24 hour period, the petals sag and go DOWNWARD once again. Day 6 and 7, the petals go limp and turn brown. In the meantime, the superior ovary is fattening (provided it was pollinated) between the limp, drying petals. Further, as the petals turn a dirty, rusty color RED color, and the vibrant red and yellow color disappear.

Gloriosa's bloom from the BOTTOM, upward.

There is NO fragrance to this flower. For five days, it is strong, vibrant, beautiful and stunning to look at on the vine. It is happiest with a slight breeze blowing, high humidity and a lot of water, given daily. These are all things that make it healthy and happy. Further, the soil mixture is compost (fertile) with top soil. In order for this to bloom, it must have everything JUST SO, or it won't grow or bloom.

The one Gloriosa that I was training to the string always kept wanting to go back to her original corner where part of her vine was leaning, even though the light was the SAME in both positions. This served to show me the reclairitant nature of Gloriosa; stubborn and bullheaded to the end with whatever it wants. This was a wonderful lesson of observation. All other Gloriosas (which they were in 3 pots, right next to one another against the East wall of the plastic, translucent wall of the greenhouse) were easy to train. So, this one plant showed me a deeper part of its inherit nature.

Knowing all this, what else can you say about her nature? This is a complex plant that requires careful study; a looking of all her parts and pieces before one jumps to any foregone conclusions.

CHAKRAS

Gloriosa is not a simple, straightforward plant to assign a chakra to. For example, as a bud, she is GREEN, which is the HEART chakra. As her bud develops more, she gets MAROON colored vertical coloring appearing on each of her closed petals. This is the BROW chakra (purple/violet color).

Then, as the petals open, the Green turns to YELLOW, which is the SOLAR PLEXUS. And the Maroon turns to RED, which is the ROOT chakra!

What can we say about this?

The BUD stage is indicative of the baby to teenage years. (0 to 18). What kind of environment is a Gloriosa person being raised in?

The BLOOM stage is indicative of adult years. (18 to 64)

The DYING stage is indicative of our elder years (65 years +)

Or, to look at this another way, since the 'head' of the flower is our head/mind/way we think/perceive reality, what would you say about this? Look at each STAGE of Gloriosa, age-wise, to make your observation and deductions.

And what does the five days of bloom and vibrancy mean? From my observations, how LONG a bloom stays in bloom is indicative of the ENDURANCE factor of the person's mental capabilities; whether it is within a 24 hour period, or for longer periods (years) of time. It can be looked at both ways. What would you say?