macro saturaday flower/my photochallenge: pink flowers

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In Southeast Asia the flowers are used to colour food. In Malay cooking, an aqueous extract is used to colour glutinous rice for kuih ketan (also known as pulut tai tai in Peranakan/Nyonya cooking) and in nonya chang. In Thailand, a syrupy blue drink is made called nam dok anchan (น้ำดอกอัญชัน). In Burma the flowers are used as food, often they are dipped in batter and fried.

The flowers of this vine have the shape of human female pudenda, hence the Latin name of the genus "Clitoria", from "clitoris". (Synonyms: Clitoris principissae.)[3] "Ternatea", the name of the species, comes from Ternate, a location in Indonesia.[citation needed] In some languages (Tamil, Malayalam) it is named after the seashell, which is a euphemism for a woman's external sexual organs.[citation needed]

Owing to its similarity to a human body part, this plant has been ascribed properties affecting the same (a phenomenon also found in connection with the mandrake, among other plants). It was used traditionally to cure sexual ailments, like infertility and gonorrhea, to control menstrual discharge, and also as an aphrodisiac.