The months of March-May, which everybody hate because of the scorching summer here, are among the ones that I enjoy the most in Madras. No it’s not because of the summer, but because of the fact that Madras is at its beautiful max during these months! With the autumn ending by February end or so and the onset of spring thereafter, the month of March is when all the trees are adorned with not only fresh, new leaves but also the flowers that start blooming, giving company to the leaves. 🙂
With Copperpod (Google search tells me that Copperpods are known as koNRai/konnai or konnaivagai in Tamil. And yeah this is not the same koNRai/sara koNRai/sara konnai about which I had blogged last year) and Rain tree/Monkey pod (thoongumoonji maram in Tamil) being the two trees that are predominantly present in Chennai, there are many places where these two present a treat to the eyes with their riot of colours. The bunches of yellow flowers of copperpods in full bloom exhibiting a beautiful contrast of rich yellow & green, with the yellow flowers appearing to outnumber the green leaves in many trees and the rain trees with their pink flowers and their leaves that open and close depending on the time of the day are making the city so colourful! In the case of copperpods, not only is the tree but also the road beneath is always beautiful, thanks to the carpet of yellow flowers laid out by the tree on the road underneath it. There are many places where these two trees are adjacent to each other and I just love the very sight of the yellow, green and pink colours together.
It’s not just the copperpods & rain trees alone. March-April was the time when the neem trees fully covered by neem flowers (neem fruits have replaced the flowers now), the green-coloured flowers blooming in the marudhaaNi/mehendi plants, the mango trees starting to get laden with loads of mangoes, all appeared to be celebrating the spring season. 🙂 And then there are those trees with colorful flowers that are not as ubiquitous in Chennai as the above-mentioned ones.
I had no clue about the names of most of the flowers that are making my city a beauty. So as usual, I started googling and stumbled upon this excellent website. The site truly lives up to what’s written on its home page. All you need to remember is the how the flower looked like and I am sure you will be able to get all the details about flower from that website! The search by flower colour is a great feature! It’s from this site only that I got to know about copperpod and some more flowers.
In the month of March, there was this sort of rosish-white flowers that started blooming all over a tall tree. This tree too like copperpod, sheds its flowers and lays out a beautiful carpet of flowers underneath it. At first, I thought it must be the Waras tree. If not, then I thought, it has to be some variety of the Pink Trumpet trees. Seeing this website left me all the more confused. At first, I thought it was Pink Tecoma! Now I am convinced that it’s the Hispaniolan rosy trumpet tree! Phew! I know you must think I am crazy! 😛 Anyway, since all these trees seem to belong to the jacaranda family and their flowers appear similar, I think I will refer to it as just trumpet tree! It sure was fun trying to find out the name of this flower. 🙂
Then there were these flowers that were bluish-violet in colour. This time I had no difficulty in finding out the name. It’s called Queen Crape Myrtle. Yellow Bells/Trumpets and Caribbean Trumpets (again trumpets! Phew! 😉 ) and Siamese Cassia (Now this is also known as manjaL koNRai in Tamil!!) are some of the other flowers that are there in quite a few places.
April-end is the time when sara koNRai starts blooming in full glory and many trees are covered with only flowers now. 🙂 Gulmohar has also started flowering only recently. Though some trees are already fully-covered with red flowers, soon there will be more of the vivid red gulmohars everywhere. The pink,yellow and white Bougainvilleas are always there.
But, the flowers in other trees have slowly started reducing. The Trumpet and Queen Crape Myrtle tree are having less flowers compared to how it was a few weeks ago. Already in many copperpod trees, which happen to my favourite, the flowers have given way to pods. I guess soon there will be only few copperpod flowers left. I for one am surely going to miss those. 🙁
But I am all for enjoying nature’s beauty while it lasts and that’s why for the past couple of months, every time I step out on the roads, I can’t help but sing yun hi chala chal raahi kitni haseen hai yeh duniya, phool saare jamele dekh phoolon ke mele badi rangeen hai yeh duniya! 😀 And thanks to my morning walks, in which, by the way, I am still regularly irregular, I am getting to admire these colourful flowers in a peaceful atmosphere devoid of the noise of traffic and the mad rush of city life! I am sure all you Chennaiites out there are going to agree with me that our city cannot be more beautiful & colourful than it is now! 🙂
What a post! Botany galore 🙂
Indeed the flowers are nice to look at, but the torrid heat is a bit too much for me to call March-May as the beautiful period!
Sathej
:O 🙄
Do you twitter?
What this post needs are some photos of the flowers. You must understand some of your readers are extremely lazy to perform onerous tasks like clicking on links ;). Well, at least one is.
😀
Shall I add.. Gundu malli and Frangipani to the list please? 🙂
chennai rocks in summer…very true…you start the day on a holiday..go various places under Hot sun…till afternoon…drink all those..sugarcane juice, lime soda water etc etc come back home by afnoon exhausted..one sooper sleeep in dark room after a lunch.wow.
Dear Aparna,
Nice post again.
I was remainded of my botany school teacher as we used to discuss these at that time.Can I ask you something??
What is the motivating factor behind writing such a post…I guess Mother nature.. for sure..Is that right??
Please provide some photos if possible.
Regards
Nice post.
Madras means what it comes to mind is tree less westmambalam, tnagar, vadapalani, nandhanam etc…
ithellam entha area-la irukku, illa madras puravume irukkuma. one area where i find trees in madras is pondy bazaar.
photos with description of place where it was taken would add strength to this post.b/w here in bangalore its in full bloom 🙂
Tiruchi too… 🙂
I second sathej! moreover i feel chennai is more green now, thanks to the removal of all banners and hoardings… I can see the drastic difference in gemini.. it’s so green!! 🙂
niceeeeeeee post. photos pls….. 🙂 btw u know what? i have been thinking of the same thing.. the heat here in ahmedabad is just unbearable, but the summer months are gorgeously beautiful, especially in the mornings. the beautiful gulmohar tree i can see in full bloom out of my balcony makes my day every day. 🙂
Nice post… We had the Konrai flower tree in our old house… During summer it would be like trees shedding the yellow flowers as carpet for me 😛
Rain tree you mentioned is also known as the Sleeping tree, in my school we had this tree alot… 🙂
Well, thats the only reason you might enjoy the Chennai summer. May be the early morning walk is the enjoyable one as we feel it to be cooler and as you said the flowers at full bloom add to our happiness. Otherwise this is a oven to be in. Soon there’ll be a botanical garden here in Chennai. How’s this for a news? 😉
Sathej,
Hmmm 🙂
Arvind,
Why :O?
Srikanth,
No I don’t
Puranjoy,
You are forgetting the fact that it’s not the readers alone who are lazy 😉
Curious,
Yeah sure 🙂
Suriya,
What about working days? 😉
Saravanan,
Thank you. It’s Mother Nature of course. I haven’t taken any photos.
Sami,
Thank you. Pondy Bazaar kooda neenga solre tree-less T.Nagarla dhaan irukku 😉 Anyway, Copperpod & Rain Trees are there everywhere in Madras. You will find the almost all the other trees in Boat Club Road.
Yeah I know. But I am so busy admiring the nature’s beauty that I don’t get the time to take photos 😉 Anyway, I will try to take some photos one of these days.
That’s great. Enjoy nature’s beauty 🙂
Mathangi,
You are right! Didn’t even know there so many trees in some of the places that had been hidden by hoardings all these days
Priya,
Thank you 🙂 Will try to take some photos.
That’s great! 🙂 There’s nothing that is as refreshing as seeing a tree laden with colourful flowers!
Vidhya,
Thank you. Wow! I would love to have a carpet like that outside my house 😉
Oh I didn’t know it is referred to as sleeping tree in English too. I always refer to it in its Tamil name thoongumoonji maram only.
Venkat,
The mornings aren’t any cooler either. Its very hot by 6:30 itself.
I heard that news and am happy it’s going to happen 😉
that means enaku onnum puriala..
naan biology gropu illa
online botany class attend panna mathri irukkuthuthu
Arvind,
Flowers names ezhudhina udane botany classaa idhu? 😛 naanumdhaan Bio group illa.
neenga laa periya aalu 😛
naan apidi illa …
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