09-23-2007, 11:56 AM
Andy, I'm so glad you came up with the right name.
This is the exact plant I meant. The pinwheel flower is borne on a tubalar structure, and the unopened bud is tubular, whereas tiare and common gardenia flowers open out of plump buds.
I notice that these Forbidden Fruits typically look chlorotic in the soil here, much more so than gardenias.
I don't think it smells anything like a gardenia (tiare does).
It's closer to the fragrant variety of ixora.
At Garden Exchange they sell this as Indian Gardenia.
This linkhttp://toptropicals.com/cgi-bin/garden_catalog/cat.cgi?uid=Tabernaemontana_africana
nicknames it Samoan Gardenia.
Definitely not a gardenia, not even in the same botanical Family.
and yes, if you google it you find articles on the alkaloids and a discussion of opiate type properties ... but I would certainly hesitate to ingest any unless I knew a whole lot more about the toxic properties.
This is the exact plant I meant. The pinwheel flower is borne on a tubalar structure, and the unopened bud is tubular, whereas tiare and common gardenia flowers open out of plump buds.
I notice that these Forbidden Fruits typically look chlorotic in the soil here, much more so than gardenias.
I don't think it smells anything like a gardenia (tiare does).
It's closer to the fragrant variety of ixora.
At Garden Exchange they sell this as Indian Gardenia.
This linkhttp://toptropicals.com/cgi-bin/garden_catalog/cat.cgi?uid=Tabernaemontana_africana
nicknames it Samoan Gardenia.
Definitely not a gardenia, not even in the same botanical Family.
and yes, if you google it you find articles on the alkaloids and a discussion of opiate type properties ... but I would certainly hesitate to ingest any unless I knew a whole lot more about the toxic properties.