水梅s are such elegant flowers, especially the double-petalled: tiny, delicate, fragrant, white lanterns, dangling in clusters. i frequently long to make gifts of them, but they would never last — then the mid-afternoon downpour scattered them in the mud — 葬花, one thinks. but i cannot resent the downpour: never have the monsoons been so welcome, in these days of oppressive haze.

curious how they are of different families altogether but all use ‘jasmine’ as part of their popular name, the three night-blooming fragrant plants by our gate: murraya paniculata, the orange jasmine, 七里香, fragrance that wafts for seven lis; jasminum sambac, the arabian jasmine，the classic 茉莉 of the jasmine flower song; and wrightia religiosa, the water jasmine, 水梅.

on the subject of floral fragrances i asked a tamil speaker about that weinberger chestnut, whether ‘to wed’ or ‘to embrace’ had the same root as the word meaning ‘to emit fragrance’, or whether that was like pound’s chinese all over again. the reply: “it is like pound’s chinese all over again.”

To wed = திருமணம் செய்ய
To embrace = தழுவிக்கொள்ள
To emit fragrance = வாசனை உமிழ்கிறது

which i am filing away for future reference, lest I accidentally find myself married when I only mean to embrace someone, or to emit fragrance.