ALIKARAW FESTIVAL

THE TRIBE OF MERRY MAKING

 

   Sto. Niño, Phalaenopsis and Alikaraw FestivalThe Petal Fairies have a very important job – together with their magic petals they help to make sure that flowers grow and bloom in the human world. They are the ones who are responsible in making our environment ideal to live for. Do you not feel around your brows a softer and sweeter air than you ever breathed before? Do you not perceive, in spite of the obscurity that veils your sight, a light more brilliant, and penetrating, and delightful? It is because our environment is blessed with tropical plants like palms, lilies and orchids.

 In Leyte, you will find rare flora and fauna; a garden where the productions of wild flowers in every zone and clime are united, and live together in friendly concurrence. The brilliant tropical flowers are seen at the side of the green grasses and the aloes near the periwinkle. Palm-trees spread their fan-like leaves above a grove of acacias, whose white flowers are faintly tinged with red. In moist branches grow orchids that mingle their sweet colors and their crimson glow. The red, pink, white colored petals, and a thousand flowers which arrest the eye, but which we need no name, here mingle in harmonious groups, or form beautiful Eden. All these flowers live, breathe, and converse, as they interchange odors. It is believed that fairies dwell in these gardens to protect the floWERS.

Of all flowers that bloom in the forestof Leyte, there is one rare orchid species that Leyteños are very proud of: the Phalaenopsis orchid that grows wildly in moist branches. It is named after a group of large moths because the flowers of some species resemble moths in flight. For this reason, the species are sometimes called Moth orchids. Little is known about their habitat and their ecology in nature since little field research has been done in the last decades. In the wild they are typically found below the canopies of moist and humid lowland forests, protected against direct sunlight, but equally in seasonally dry or cool environments. The species have adapted individually to these three habitats. They bloom in their full glory for several weeks.