to Liquid Eye's Flower Shop, the place to behold and enjoy colorful photos of beautiful flowers of all sorts. Today we take a look at the Chinese Balloon Flowers which bloomed a few weeks ago on the terrace of my house. First, let's look at some basic information I've gathered about these balloon-like beauties so we know what we're looking at.
are herbaceous plants that typically grow to a height of about 30 to 90 cm (1 to 3 feet). The leaves are toothed and can vary in shape from lance to oval shaped. The most distinctive feature is the balloon-like flower buds that resemble inflated balloons before they open. The buds of this plant start off as pale green and then inflate before opening to reveal star-shaped flowers with four or five petals in various colors, including blue, purple, pink, and white. They are about 5 to 7.5 cm (2 to 3 inches) in diameter. The root of the Chinese balloon flower is known as "Jie Geng" and is used for its potential medicinal properties. It is believed to have expectorant, anti-inflammatory, and immune-boosting properties. It is often used to treat respiratory issues, such as coughs, bronchitis, and sore throats. This plant, at least the one on my terrace, likes to bloom in the summer months.
The shape of the balloon is not just the expected spherical type of balloon one might've expected. It has a very distinctive, interesting, kind of angular shape and here we can see that it is green at first and later turns blue. Unfortunately I didn't catch one in an intermediate stage.
And now ... drumroll ... as seen from the tip of the bloom ... the opening! This is a 4 petaled flower and others also have 5 petals as we will see soon.
Welcome to the full bloom of the Chinese Balloon Flower. A 5 petaled beauty in this case with another one on the right still in it's green stage, but already starting to inflate.
Next up is a nice view of a 4 petaled beauty where we can see how the stamp inside the flower has unfolded its legs.
Let's take a much closer look at one of the 5 petaled flowers where we see that the stamp has unfolded itself again to the next stage.
Last but not least here's what the beauties look like when their time is over, but this is the stage when we collect the seeds from the dried out flowers for next years generation.
I hope you liked this little photographic excursion into the Chinese Balloon Flower department and look forward to read from you in the comments and welcome you again in another department of Liquid Eye's Flower Shop.
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