Many people call rare flowers in the Himalayas Nagapushpa, some also call them by "variant" names such as Nagapushpam, Naga Pushpa or Naga Pushpam... Some even say the date and time the flowers bloom like their own eyes. they saw it.
The stumbling tree (Mesua ferrea) has the Sanskrit name Nagapushpa. This plant has pink to red young leaves (left) and large white flowers
nparks.gov.sg, wikimedia.org
In fact, no flower blooms once every 36 years. In Sanskrit there is indeed the word “Nagapushpa” – the correct transliteration is “nAgapuSpa” (), which refers to the flower of the twig (or vap) tree, a plant whose scientific name is my iron, English name is Indian rose chestnut, Sri Lanka ironwood or Cobra's saffron.
This plant belongs to the family Calophyllaceae, originating from the Indomalaya ecoregion (also known as the Indochinese ecoregion). People plant my iron for ornamental purposes due to their graceful appearance, large fragrant white flowers, gray-green foliage with drooping young leaves. The young leaves are gorgeous and pink to red in color. my iron It is the national tree of Sri Lanka, as well as of Mizoram and Tripura states in India. Of course, this plant looks nothing like the species that is said to bloom once every 36 years.
Researchers have researched and found that the original photo of this "36-yearly bloom" flower comes from the page Pinterest, uploaded since 2013, is in the directory Strange Flowers (Strange flowers), with the caption “Sea feather” by Gordon B Bowbrick. Later, someone deliberately faked it, taking the name of the flower Nagapushpa to assign to this "sea feather", a marine animal that specializes in eating plankton.
In Vietnamese, people often call sea feathers "sea pens", a group of "soft corals" (octocorallia), which come in many different shapes, sizes and colors.
The sea pen (above) is not a Nagapushpa flower (below), these two species are completely different
factcrescendo.com, wikimedia.org
Sea pens are invertebrates of the class Anthozoa (phylum Cnidaria), with a total of about 35 genera in 14 families of the order Pennatulacea. There are an estimated 300 species of sea pens with a global distribution, mainly in tropical and temperate waters, as well as from the intertidal zone to depths of more than 6100 m. Sea pens belong to the same group as octocorals and gorgonians.
The Chinese call this species the sea pen (海笔, hai bǐ); also means "sea pen" as the English, German and Russian call it (Sea pen, Seefedern, Морские перья). The species introduced here have an appearance like a standing tree, about 40cm high, reminiscent of an ancient brush, so they are named like that.
Sea pens are a group of animals, belonging to the order Pennatulacea, disguised as the flower Nagapushpa that blooms every 36 years.
timswww.com.au, mindenpictures.com
Yellow marker (Ptilosarcus gurneyi) and orange marker
seaslugforum.net, jarvie.ca
Like other corals, sea pens breed seasonally or year-round. They "release" eggs and sperm. The fertilized eggs develop into larvae called "planulae," which drift freely for a week and then regroup, forming a shelter for fish.
In the foreign aquarium market, sometimes there are also some species of sea pens for sale. However, it is difficult to care for them, because sea pens need a very deep base, have a special diet.
Finally, again, there is no flower in the Himalayas named Nagapushpa. Someone named the tree Nagapushpa (my iron) put it on the sea pens and faked it as "a flower that blooms once every 36 years". Today, there are still many gullible people who have shared this source, turning it into an internet sensation.
