Incense Flower

Kalachuchi flowers

Dried up under the sun

Flowering tree

While going around the Chinese Cemetery in Manila, my friends and I stumbled upon beds of kalachuchi flowers being dried out under the sun.  We wondered what they are for.   We saw a tomb caretaker  passby and asked him if he knew who was drying them and what they will be used for.  He said that people in the cemetery were collecting the common tree's flowers and sun dry them.  Every now and then someone buys the dried kalachuchi for a few hundred pesos a kilo. They are to be utilized as ingredients for incense. 

Some are spread over the concrete pavement

Some tombs are used as temporary drying areas

The white kalachuchi or Plumeria obtusa is a popular tree used around Manila. As we went around the park, drying the flower is a common practice and there are numerous ways it was done. But whenever there is a flowering kalachuchi tree, there are a multitude of fallen underneath its arbor.  For sure these would have to be cleaned by the cemetery's maintenance personnel.  Might as well earn a buclk or two for them.