The firecracker plant is a highly branched shrub that is commonly grown in planter boxes where the plant is allowed to cascade over. It produces numerous wiry stems with no obvious structures that look like leaves. As the branches emerge, they first stand up erect and as they grow longer they cascade downwards due to their weight. The fine foliage that spills over the edge of the planter box has an added advantage - it helps to ‘soften’ the harsh and sterile look of the hardscape.
The ‘Yin Yang’ Flower produced by a firecracker plant grown in HortPark.
This attractive, ornamental plant is botanically known as Russelia equisetiformis and is a member of the Scrophulariaceae family. It produces numerous small, tube-like flowers that look like firecrackers from afar. They are usually red in colour although there is another variety that produces white flowers.
Recently, Mr Keneric Ng, a Plant Information Officer from the Plant Information Unit of the National Parks Board (NParks) reported a case where a firecracker plant was found to produce an interesting-looking, bicoloured flower that was coloured two-fifths in red and the remaining three-fifths in cream.
See how cleanly the two colours were split in a single flower!
I was quite amazed and impressed with this report as Keneric must have really sharp and observant eyes to be able to spot such a minute phenomenon! I would have missed this single unique flower among the numerous flowers that a firecracker plant produce at any one time. Such a flower can be difficult to see as it could potentially be buried inside the heap of fine foliage of the firecracker plant!
The cultivar of the firecracker plant grown in HortPark that produced this one of a kind type of flower is known as ‘Flava’ which is characterised by its slightly yellow-looking foliage. The plant usually produces red coloured flowers and the ‘Yin Yang’ flower that it produced recently could have been an isolated and once-off case as mentioned by Keneric in his report.
