According to my co-members at the Co's digital Flora of the Philippines FB site, the scientific name of this very familiar crawling vine (ragayray to us in Bulusan) growing lushly and wild near the beaches of Bulusan is Ipomoea pes-caprae.
Though not rare, this plant's botanical name seems to bestow it a sense of a special quality making me looked closely to the minute details-- the color hue of the flower, its veins, the shape of the leaves etcetera. Assigning formal names gives the plant (for example this common ragayray) a sort of identity for us to take notice and be more mindful of our surroundings including the familiar and the common.
Ordinary flora are commonly taken for granted because of their ordinariness. Familiarity sometimes makes a thing invisible to our sight even though it is right in front of us.
By committing to memory ragayray's formal name, it suddenly becomes extraordinary! The name even sounded like a spell to me while I repeatedly practiced the right way to say it. Ipomoea pes-caprae. Ipomoea pes-caprae. Ipomoea pes-caprae...
Photographs by Alma P. Gamil
Bulusan, Sorsogon, Philippines
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