A most splendid inflorescence. Known locally as "Krishna Kireetam" or "Krishna "Keereetam" = meaning Shri Krishna's Crown. Coincidentally, and most amazingly, I shot this photograph (on 14 June 2014) of the inflorescence at the compound of Sri Krishna Temple at the Sri Adi Sankara Janmakshetram campus. At Kalady, the birth place of Sankara, who worshiped at the Sri Krishna Temple, and left his mother to travel all over India, and came to be known as Adi Sankaracharya.
Latin - Clerodendrum paniculatum - belongs to the family - Verbenaceae
I was invited by providence and by a miracle and by the goodwill of a very dear friend and elder brother whose name is the convergence of such magic - a convergence of Krishna and of Narayana. He invited me to be with him and his family at Kalady on an important occasion, and I could thereby get the blessings of Shri Krishna and all the deities at the Sri Adi Sankara Janmakshetram.
The 'Krishna Keereetam' flower was just there, and I was stunned by its size - almost 2 feet tall in the infloresence alone - and wondered if one could get a sharp enough photograph with my most trusted cell phone camera. And my trusted friend did not fail me. Got a series of photographs and each one is as good as the earlier one.
