Wikimedia Commons
Apocynaceae
Frangipani
Plumeria rubra
New beginnings, devotion, immortality.
- Family
- Apocynaceae
- Genus
- Plumeria
- Native to
- Mexico, Central America, Caribbean
- Bloom season
- Spring, Summer, Fall
- Type
- Small tree or shrub
- Height
- 3–8 m (10–25 ft)
- Sunlight
- Full sun
- Soil
- Well-drained, sandy
- Water
- Low
- Hardiness
- 10–12
- Lifespan
- Long-lived (50+ years)
Did you know
- Frangipani is the universal flower of Hawaiian leis, Polynesian welcomes, and Balinese temple offerings—but the tree is not actually native to any of those places, having traveled there from the Americas in the 1500s.
- The name 'frangipani' comes from a 16th-century Italian noble, Marquis Frangipani, who created a perfume that smelled remarkably like the flower long before Europeans had ever seen one.
- In Hawaiian custom, a flower worn over the right ear means 'looking for love,' and over the left ear means 'taken'—a quietly romantic floral language.
- The flowers contain no nectar—they trick hawk moths into pollinating them with their intoxicating evening fragrance, then leave the moth empty-handed.
- A frangipani branch broken off and pushed into the soil will root and grow—the tree is so hardy that ancient cuttings traveled the spice routes in dry sailors' duffels and survived.
Color meanings
0
new life
1
devotion
2
tropical romance