Blue Trumpet Vine, Laurel Clock Vine, Thunbergia laurifolia
A native to India, it is a fast-growing ornamental vine with showy violet, white or blue trumpet-shaped flowers. It is locally known as kar tuau in Malaysia and rang jeud in Thailand. Thunbergia laurifolia leaves are opposite, heart-shaped with
serrated leaf margin and taper to a pointed tip. Flowers are not scented
and borne on pendulous inflorescence. The hermaphrodite flower is
trumpet-shaped with a short broad tube, white outside and yellowish
inside. The corolla is pale blue in color with 5–7 petals, one larger
than the others.
The plant flowers almost continuously throughout the year with
flowers opening early in the morning and aborting in the evening of the
same day. Carpenter bees are frequent visitors, creeping into the
flowers for pollen and nectar while black ants are present probably as
nectar scavengers. The plant develops a very tuberous root system.
In Malaysia, juice from crushed leaves of T. laurifolia are taken
for menorrhagia, placed into the ear for deafness, and applied for
poulticing cuts and boils. In Thailand, leaves are used
as an antipyretic, as well as an antidote for detoxifying poisons. Several Thai herbal companies have
started producing and exporting rang jeud tea.
The tea has been claimed to be able to detoxify the harmful effects of
drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.
Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the
object of pursuit, and it leads us on a wild-goose chase, and is never
attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that
we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
