Tropical Flower Memories

We don't use the excursions offered - at some price - by the cruise company when we dock at the ports of call but prefer to wander in the centre of town to find the 'feel' of the place and enjoy the memories which such warmer parts often bring. So, for example, in Lisbon we found bougainvillea in full bloom, recalling the bougainvilleas of Mombasa and the ones around our small bungalows in Rhodesia, in which the cats found snakes, and Jamaica.

However, perhaps the most amusing find....

....was when, near the dock gates in Naples, we stumbled across a lantana bush in full bloom. The lantana is a sort of verbena, of which we have two varieties growing in our garden here in Scotland, but it's a tropical plant which, while native to Africa and the Americas, has been introduced, and run wild in, much of the tropical world. In Mombasa it was used as....

....a hedging plant - the hedge beyond the bird bath in the front garden of our last Cliff Avenue house was lantana. It, like the Rhodesian bougainvillea, often housed snakes.

The flowers produce a hard green fruit which we used to stick in the end of an air gun instead of a metal pellet: if it hit bare skin it gave a nasty sting but didn't penetrate. I know - aren't small boys horrible!