The difference in the petals.

The flowers of Bauhinia purpurea in its Orchid tree have some distinct features, which occurred to me only a few days ago. 

The flowers have five petals and two petals are similar and the other three are different in the design on the petals. There is one petal with a strong design of pink in the centre with white in its margins. The one on the right in the photo above, has a streak of pink in the centre with white on both sides with the rest of the petal coloured in pink. The left petal has largely a white central design. The other two petals are grossly similar with  pink coloured design. The shape of all the five petals look similar. 

For a student of Botany,  this might be  an ordinary feature of having  different hues of colours in petals of large flowers. Some of these flowers are engineered at the genetic level in the laboratory. But I did not find a reference to it in my first enquiry.

These are ordinary events in nature. 

Every person has shades of temperament and behaviour. There are times when a person is composed, reasonable, fair, temperate, integrated and upright. There are times when person behaves impulsively and not forthcoming with a sober and righteous behaviour. 

The epigenetic of human behaviour has been under extensive study in the last three decades. 

As one interested in child development, this phenomenon continues to engage me. The attachment behaviour between an infant and mother which begins to evolve between three and twelve weeks after the birth of a child has been considered to be a foundational feature, upon which behaviours of childhood and even adulthood are formed. 

 

An infant often cuddled, responded to, pacified while crying, fed well, played with interactively and given opportunity to socialise with members of the family and others by the time an infant is nearing his firth day, seems to have better chance to develop a communicative,  and affirmative behaviour in the toddler years and later. 

This epigenetic environment has lasting influence in the development of adult temperament and behaviour. 

A child at ten years was a loner at school. He seemed to stay withdrawn. A teacher who took time to befriend him found that his father worked in a distant place and came home only on week end. His mother too had long hours of work at her office. The domestic workers who took care of children kept changing and there were times when children were left to themselves after school till mother returned late in the evening. This sort of childhood deprivation is more common now than earlier. The child at ten years had no experience of relating to others. The teacher took considerable interest in helping him to adapt. The teacher encouraged him to take interest in extra curricular activities. His musical ability helped him to join the school choir. From then on he seemed to show indications of social initiatives. It was the teacher who helped him to recover and find his way forward.

The childhood is a time of formation with the healthy confluences of many relational experiences. But we come across children who behave discordantly and stressfully!

The flowers above reveal their hues of colour and design. They are formed to be so.

The formational influences of early childhood would determine the temperament and behaviour of late childhood! The home is the place of formation of childhood. Parenting presence is a significant influence. A child needs diverse healthy experiences to have a confluence of sound conduct and character. 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)