Plumeria
Plumeria (common name: Frangipani) is a small genus of 7-8 species native to tropical and subtropical America. The genus consist of mainly deciduous shrubs and trees. P. more...
rubra (Common Frangipani, Red Frangipani), native to Central America, Mexico and Venezuela, produces flowers ranging from yellow to pink depending on form or cultivar. The genus is also related to the Oleander, Nerium oleander, both are known to possess poisonous milky sap, rather similar to that of Euphorbia. The name of the genus is actually derived from a seventeenth-century French botanist who traveled to the new world documenting many plant and animal species Charles Plumier (the original spelling of the genus was Plumiera). The common name may vary from place to place, for example, the name is Kembang Kamboja in Indonesia, and "Dead Man's fingers" in Australia. The Australian name perhaps taken from its finger-like, dry greyish bark.
As well as differences in flower colour the species also have differently shaped leaves and bark texture.
The flowers are most fragrant at night, in order to lure sphinx moths to pollinate them. Plumeria flowers have no nectar, and simply dupe their pollinators. The flowers are pollinated as the moths inadvertently transfer pollen from flower to flower in their fruitless search for nectar.
Plumerias are easily propagated by taking a ripe cutting of leafless stem tips in spring and allowing them to dry at the base before inserting them into soil. They are also propagated via tissue culture.
They are now common naturalised plants in southern and southeastern Asia, and in local folk beliefs provide shelter to ghosts and demons. In Hawaii they are used for making leis.
Read more at Wikipedia.org
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