The brilliant orange-red flowers are borne in large corymbs and followed by berries which ripen black. The flowers are reputed to be part of Hindu worship offerings at statues of incarnations of Paramathma.

Ixora [ik' zo rah] is a member of the Rubiaceae, the coffee or madder family. There are somewhere between 300 and 400 species of Ixora; most are native to the Old World tropics from Africa to Southeast Asia, and south through Oceania to Australia. A few are found in tropical America. With an abundant number of species, gardeners have hybridized and created numerous varieties: yellows, oranges, reds, and pinks.

In 1737, Linnaeus compiled a guideline (Critica botanica) for the naming of plants. He eschewed generic names "an ell (a yard an a half) long, or difficult to pronounce, or unpleasant...." But even higher on his list of rules, he stated, "Generic names which have not a root derived from Greek or Latin are to be rejected....However, I retain barbarous names when I can obtain a root suggesting a possible derivation from Latin or Greek...."

In 1753, Ixora coccinea was the first of the genus named by Linnaeus. It is uncharacteristic that he should select Ixora, a name derived from the Sanskrit, içvara, master, lord, prince. Used as a proper name, Ixora was applied to the third incarnation of Paramathma—Shiva, the destroyer and re-creator.

(Compiled from: "The red bloom", Chitra Radhakrishnan, The Hindu, 16/12/2002; Hortus Third, Staff L.H. Bailey Hortorium, NY State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Macmillan, NY, 1976; "Shiva", Sanatan Society, no date; "Ixora", The Century Unabridged Dictionary, 1889, placed online by Global Language Resources, 2001-2005; and "Ixora", A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, C. Brickell and J.D. Zuk, eds. American Horticultural Society, DK Publishers, NY, 1996)