Makahiya: From the grass family  of grasses that can be found in Philippine provinces. Makahiya grass will close it leaves once someone or something touches it. Something magical for a kid to watch. It's the only grass/plant I've seen that shyly close its leaves when touched and reopen again within a minute.

Makahiya: From the word hiya , and  mahiyain in Tagalog, which means shame, shameful, the act of being ashame.

I love reading Legends, and folklores when I was a child, and I have books of it. I can't remember the whole story of makahiya but here's what I remember..... 

THE LEGEND:

Once there was a young maiden, she barely go out of their home, and she was known of being mahiyain , or she's ashamed of going out and meeting people.

She was beautiful though. And she had a boyfriend. The two love each other very much. The man was this girl's first love. Then the day came that the guy told this lovely maiden that he has to go somewhere important, and that he will be back.

And the lady promised to wait for her boyfriends' return. She waited and waited, but still,  he never came back or heard any news of him. She'd been very worried, and became sick. Still, she would insist to her parents to wait for him, sitting there facing the way, hoping that she would see her man coming.

But she became very, very ill and died.

After a few days on the place where she'd been buried, there's this strange grass that was growing, a grass her neighboors haven't seen before. And everytime they would happen to touch the open little leaves of the grass, it will close, and after about a minute or so, will reopen again. These reminds her neighboors of the  lovely maiden being mahiyain , which happens to be this strange grass characteristics too. From then on,  they named the grass makahiya.