Forgetting about Plumeria

Botanical science says that the beautiful flowering shrubs of genus Plumeria – in English, frangipani – come from central America and the Caribbean. Scientific sites list about a dozen species, all native to that region.

But these days Plumeria species grow around the world. In Polynesia, they are commonly used to make leis. And in southeast Asia they have been widely planted in graveyards and around temples and have acquired a whole folklore of associations with ghosts and the afterlife. People say this is because they grow readly from a cutting stuck in the ground, the same reason usually given for willow having the same associations. In the Phillipines Plumeria is called "temple flower." According to this unreliable-looking website, frangipani is the national flower of Laos (as well as Nicaragua, besides being the city flower of Palermo, Sicily).

In fact the mythic associations of Plumeria are so strong that many people in Southeast Asia refuse to believe they were imported. Somebody inserted this paragraph into wikipedia's article:

In Southeast Asia the plumeria tree and flower are considered sacred. A relief in the Penataran temple ruins in East Java shows a plumeria tree with its distinct flower petals and skeleton-like branches. A relief in the Borobudur temple, at the west side 1st zone, also depicts plumeria. These reliefs were created before European exploration. Borobudur was constructed in the 9th century and Penataran in the 14th century. Taken together, their dates fail to establish when plumeria came to Southeast Asia. 

Above is one of the reliefs in question, from that temple on East Java. Modern botanists seem unimpressed and say that could be a lot of plants.

I'm obviously no expert, but I strongly suspect that the botanists are right. People very quickly forget that things are new and came from outside; as soon as they become central to the culture, they are assumed to be ancient. The best example I know is that by the 1890s horses featured in Sioux creation myths; their way of life was impossible without horses, so obviously the gods must have provided tham at the beginning.

It is actually true that by 1840 many Irish peasants had no idea that potatoes were a recent introduction. Another great example is hot peppers, which many people in Asia and Africa still insist are native even though modern genetics shows that all the known varieties come from the New World and spread within the past 500 years. I especially like the story of peppers because there is essentially no written evidence; educated botanists were not much interested in hot peppers, so I imagine they were spread by common sailors, under the elite radar.

Plumeria growing in a graveyard in Penang, Malaysia

The story of Plumeria is probably similar, although in this case there is actual documentation. The Spanish quickly became fans of these plants, using them to make perfume and medicine, and records indicate they had been taken to the Phillipines by 1600. That gives them plenty of time to have been adopted into Asian cultures before modern botanists started poking their noses into temple courtyards, applying Latin names to the plants they found.