Tree tag
Posted by admin | Filed under Uncategorized
After BBMP’s contemplative wall murals, here’s the next best solution to beat traffic jam blues on your way to work. Look out of the window, identify a tree, jab a finger into a colleague’s shoulder blade and scream its name. And then play jab tag all the way to work. Time will pass off like anything I’m telling you.
Well, just to get you started, here’s a list of some of Bangalore’s prettiest avenue trees that flower obligingly almost all through the year.
Clockwise from top left: Rain Tree, Rusty Shield Bearer, Champaka,Honge, Queen's Flower,Bauhinia, Frangipani, Peacock Tree
The Rain tree(Enterolobium saman) :Found everywhere in Bangalore, this enormous tree spreads a huge canopy over the streets and gardens it grows in. I’ve always imagined Enid Blyton’s Magic faraway Tree to be a cross between a giant Rain Tree and a towering Raspuri Mango. All year round, especially in June, it produces a gossamer web of delicate pink feathery flowers that slowly turn to giant seed pods that fall and melt into bumps on the roads. At night, the leaves fold into themselves, as the tree, along with all its resident bats, crows, mynahs, bulbuls and crickets, goes to sleep.
The most enormous Rain Trees in Bangalore certainly have to be the three giants at the Malleshwaram station, not to forget the goliath in front of the State Bank of India on St Marks Road.
The Rusty Shield Bearer (Or the Copper Pod Tree) (Peltophorum): Also ubiquitous to Bangalore’s streets, this big broad sturdy tree carpets roads and gardens with pretty yellow blossoms thrice a year. The flower stalks then produce rusty brown shield like pods that give this beauty its name. Caution: Ants – the big fat nasty ones, LOVE this tree, I couldn’t ever figure out why!
The Peacock Tree (Caesalpinea pulcherrimma): This tough spiny shrub-tree produces bunches of beautiful yellow-orange flowers all through the year. It is especially fond of arid regions in North Karnataka and Andhra, but blooms with obliging regularity in Bangytown too. Right now, the small bunch of Caesalpinea bushe peeping out at the passing traffic on Chinnaswamy stadium road, is in full bloom.
Champaka (or Sampige) (Michelia champaca): Did you know that the Indian Champaka is actually a magnolia? This tall beautiful mast like tree produces headily fragrant blooms through the year but mostly in the monsoon. A gorgeous lungful for all that pass by under it. Sampige road, named after the Champa trees planted along its side, especially in the 17th cross area, is the best place to view them.
Frangipani (Plumeria): Definitely up there among Bangalore’s beauteous bloomers . Blooms in a fragrant riot of colours all year round. This tree isn’t from India, and is often confused with the Indian Champaka above, especially in the north. A huge copse of blood red Frangipani is in full bloom right now at the Nehru planetarium, as you drive past the Raj Bhavan towards Chalukya Hotel.
Honge (Pongamia): This stocky, unprepossessing tree-shrub is notorious for causing major skids on the roads with its carpet of oily lilac flowers. Interestingly, it has been proven to be India’s most cooling tree, and is therefore ideal for hot or dusty places.
Queen’s Flower (Lagerstroemia): A beautiful specimen of this Western Ghat species sycophantically named named after Rani Vickie by it’s discoverer, is quite coincidentally in dramatic bloom in front of her statue at the beginning of MG Road.
Bauhinia (err.. Bauhinia) :This is an odd little tree that looks like a creeper that has coiled up around itself.It produces wispy pink and lilac flowers all year around. But its most beautiful features are its lovely heart shaped leaves. If I were Shakuntala, I’d write out my love note to Dushyanta on a Bauhinia leaf.
March 25th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
I discovered your homepage by coincidence.
Very interesting posts and well written.
I will put your site on my blogroll.
March 25th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
Hello,I love reading through your blog, I wanted to leave a little comment to support you and wish you a good continuation. Wishing you the best of luck for all your blogging efforts.
March 26th, 2010 at 3:14 am
Ah! the brilliant green of the honge… and the basavana pada… such a beauties i say!
March 27th, 2010 at 1:18 am
Thanks Jenifer, Carolyn and Smitha, do check in for more updates
March 28th, 2010 at 9:19 am
great work!
i think you forgot jacaranda which is in bloom everywhere right now and also tabebuia
March 28th, 2010 at 11:39 am
the highlight of my day is the beautiful queen’s flower tree near the domlur flyover….exquisite
March 28th, 2010 at 11:51 am
Thanks for reminding me how pretty Blore avenues are
March 29th, 2010 at 7:14 am
Nice article. Wanted to know the names of these beautiful avenue trees of Bangalore.
Thanks!
March 30th, 2010 at 12:59 am
You guys seem to personally know all the trees in Blore.Nice:)
April 23rd, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Nice article. Wanted to know the names of these beautiful avenue trees of Bangalore.
Thanks!
April 25th, 2010 at 11:14 pm
I must say, I love this site. Could let me know how I can go about keeping up to date with it? I feel I should let you know I found your website through Aol.
April 26th, 2010 at 1:59 am
Hey, how about posts on various plants available in bangalore and the nurseries where you get them??
May 2nd, 2010 at 2:35 am
What about Margosa road in Malleswaram?
May 29th, 2010 at 1:08 am
Nice article. Wanted to know the names of these beautiful avenue trees of Bangalore.
Thanks!
June 29th, 2010 at 9:40 am
What about Margosa road in Malleswaram?