A rose by any other name...

... would smell as sweet. However, this "Rose" I'm talking about has no scent to boast of and is not even a real rose.

The mother plant that produced our next batch of baby Desert Roses.

This Desert Rose (yeh ley yeh ley),
each of her veil's a secret promise
This desert flower (yeh ley yeh ley),
no sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this

Sweet Desert Rose (yeh ley yeh ley),
this memory of Eden haunts us all
This desert flower, this rare perfume
is the sweet intoxication of the fall...

("Desert Rose" by Sting)

So why would Sting sing of the Desert Rose like it has a sweet and intoxicating perfume? Maybe his song is about some other plant or perhaps it's about a woman whom he calls "Desert Rose", I don't know. What I do know is that we now have an abundant supply of Adenium obesum. Sweet!

I have no current pictures of our Desert Rose in bloom. What I do have though are proofs that they did flower and their blooms left behind progenies that will guarantee their species' continued existence in our garden.

The second batch of young Desert Roses in the nursery with a couple of ornamental pineapples lost in their midst.

In my previous entry "A rose is a rose is a rose", I've mentioned how we got to produce a lot of baby Desert Roses from a single mother plant. I'm glad to say that those babies are no longer babies and some of them are now scattered all over the upper garden. Some are still left in the nursery and they too are doing well just biding their time until they too are moved to their permanent location.

What's left of the first batch of Desert Roses bred in our garden nursery. Their siblings have already been scattered in the upper garden.

Mom was so successful at her first attempt in propagating this plant from seeds that she tried her luck once more. Now we have a new batch of young Adeniums in the nursery. They're still small and cute but they are already manifesting one of the distinctive characteristics of a Desert Rose, a stout base. They will reside in the nursery for a few more months until they're old enough to be transplanted.

The flower of the Desert Rose may not have a sweet scent that intoxicates the senses. But that does not diminish the beauty of this plant.