Our Wedelia

Along the embankment supported by a stone wall at the back of the house is a remnant patch of plants with small, yellow, daisy-like flowers.

They're wedelia (Wedelia Acapulcensus), commonly known as "creeping oxeyes." Pretty creepy name for such a beautiful flower, huh? The name honors the German physician Georg Wolfgang Wedel (1645-1721), a professor of, among other things, botany.

Anyway, the flowers are related to sunflowers.

When I was working at the Honolulu Board of Water Supply as a community relations specialist, I used to talk a lot to the landscapers who knew everything from hedges to poinsettias, from hibiscus to wedelia. They were extremely knowledgeable and some of the friendliest guys around.

Anyway, they used to tell me how people would come up to them after they trimmed the Board's wedelia bushes, and ask for the cuttings. The plant is so hardy that if you bury the cuttings under a light layer of fertile soil and keep watering them, they'll take root and flourish.

The wedelia in our embankment used to cover the entire area, but like any water-loving plant, if you don't keep it watered, they'll wither away. That's what happened to ours. We live on the side of an old cinder cone and the soil just leaches away when it rains, thanks to the gravel and cinder beneath it.

However, as a testament to its hardiness, it still pops out every now and then during the rainy season.

Glory be to the wedelia!