A cold rain has been falling steadily for two days now.  An east wind is blowing much more strongly than the east wind usually does.  The temperature just crept above 40 degrees.  And rain is in the forecast for the next six days.  April showers bring May flowers–and I am looking forward to that.  But for today, I have an indoor flower for you to see!

This plant is a Hoya carnosa or Wax plant.  It has thick, waxy, dark green leaves and sends out long, bare stems that then produce leaves.  The newest stem likes to grow to the fluorescent light, even though it is in the southwest window.  I pull it down to the other stems, then by the next day, it is back inside the lamp shade!

A couple weeks ago I noticed a flower bud starting to grow from a thick stalk that radiated numerous thin stems.  At the end of each stem was a tiny tan envelope in a perfect pentagon shape with a faint pink star coming from a pink center.  As the days went by, the little five-sided envelopes turned more pink with a darker pink pentagon star in the middle.  And finally over the weekend, each envelope unfolded to a delicate blush-pink velvety star with a cream and red star at the core.  It has a faintly spicy fragrance, and each center star has a tiny drop of nectar clinging to it.

What an exquisite, perfect, geometric design of this flower of fives!  It’s a bright star on a dreary day!