City Nature – Amaltas in 2024 Bloom, Around Town Nature by The Delhi Walla - May 2, 20240 Summer’s gift [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] By yellow-and-green autos speeding along the Mathura Road, the heat-stricken citizen is walking wearily, past a deserted bus stop, past a woman selling bottled water, past a… here it is, right beside a “Go slow accident prone area” signboard. This tree in bloom. The Amaltas. See photo. Shivering feverishly in the light breeze, these golden-yellow flowers have shown up just in time, spotted on the last day of April. Amaltas marks the entry of summertime heatwaves. Use this city guide for a definitive darshan of the tree in blossom. Stroll along central Delhi’s Hailey Road. The dozens of Amaltas trees here tend to be entirely clothed in flowers. All day long they fall on the
City Season – Jacaranda Blooms, Around Town Nature by The Delhi Walla - April 16, 20240 Happy blues. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] On Saturday morning, Lithuanian ambassador Diana Mickevičienė was strolling in the little park close to her residence in Vasant Vihar, and found the trees clothed in purple flowers. The lanes too were densely carpeted with the same flowers, though on the ground they looked more like blue to her. A fellow park regular declared it to be neelmohar, the jacaranda. Owner of a leaves-filled copy of Pradip Krishen’s classic book Trees of Delhi, the ambassador wasn’t convinced. She snapped photos of the park’s dream-like sublime scenes and shared them on X, asking, “What is this tree?” Finally, she called up her “trees teacher” Debika Lahiri, who identified it as Moulmein rosewood. That said, Jacaranda,
City Nature – Two Bougainvillea Trees, Lodhi Garden Nature by The Delhi Walla - March 29, 2024March 29, 20240 Season’s spectacle. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Following are a few observations made in a city park one uncomfortably warm noon this week. 1. Currently, the most beautiful sight in Delhi is of two side-by-side bougainvillea trees in Lodhi Garden, close to the duck pond. 2. From afar, the two trees are twinning like Seeta aur Geeta, both being superfluously loaded with dark pink flowers. 3. The flowers are raining down nonstop from the bougainvillea branches, carpet bombing the muddy ground in pink. 4. These two bougainvillea trees bear flowers throughout the year, a park gardener asserts, but the densest blossoming occurs now, after the conclusion of winter. The lush bloom will last through the summer, she says, and will end with
City Nature – Pilkhan Trees, District Park Nature by The Delhi Walla - March 25, 20240 New leaves. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Today is the holy Holi. This day of colours ends in hours, but some of the colours of Holi shall linger amid the trees of Delhi (even though the season’s red bloom of semal tree is reaching an end). All you have to do is to next week visit the District Park in Hauz Khas Village. The place has quite a few pilkhan trees, and most are about to dress up completely in new leaves. The leaves will be special— they glow in striking shades of red. Pointing to a tree, the guard at the park’s entrance identifies it as pilkhan, saying the green leaves will fall any day now. “Naye patte”
City Season – 2024 Spring, Around Town Nature by The Delhi Walla - March 19, 2024March 19, 20240 Colours of Holi. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Spring is a time of colours, and colours mean Holi. This year, the festival is falling quite late, on March 25 (it was on March 8 last year). Even so, these days, colours are everywhere. The Delhi sky is dark blue on this late morning. A green-and-yellow auto rickshaw passes by the Oberoi hotel. A tree standing by the hotel’s staff entrance is covered in white flowers. A guard in white says it is a kachnar. Many kachnars bear lavender-shaded flowers. One such tree is just inside the gate, the guard says. (Delhiwale in Purani Dilli make a subzi out of these flowers—it is delicious but the flowers look prettier otherwise). Some
City Nature – Peepal Sighting, Around Town Nature by The Delhi Walla - March 15, 20240 A tree and its leaves. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The Hauz Khas pave is coated with leaves. The culprit is standing innocently by the roadside—the tree is partly leafless. Such is the case these days with many Delhi peepals. In the western world, leaves fall in autumn. In Delhi, the patjhar, or leaf fall, arrives for certain trees after the winter, during our short spring. The phenomenon foretells the coming dry months. To survive in prolonged drought, a tree might briefly discard its leaves to stop transpiring water. March is a time of such transition, when select species of trees have parted with their leaves, and are either bare, or are just starting to be stocked with new
City Nature – Trees, Gurugram Railway Station Nature by The Delhi Walla - March 5, 20240 Platform arbour. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The evening sun is slinking into the distant west. The air in the immediate vicinity is powdery, either with dust, or with the gathering mist, or perhaps it is simply smog. A man in half-sweater is slouching by the railway tracks. Behind him, a Brobdingnagian tree, the trunk the size of a train compartment, is lording over the scene with its millions of leaves. Will this banyan have a role in the tomorrow’s scheme of things? Late last month the Prime Minister laid the foundation for revamping the Gurgaon railway station under the Amrit Bharat Station Scheme, a project in which 554 stations will be redeveloped at a cost of over 19,000 crores rupees.
City Nature – Songs of Semal, Around Town Nature by The Delhi Walla - February 26, 20240 Red season. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Late-February afternoon. Auto rickshaw carting the commuter along one of the loopy highways of the circuitous AIIMS flyover. Sky is pitch blue. Other sights totally unremarkable. Suddenly, a tree dotted with red. The blossoming of semal marks the debut of Delhi’s most tolerable season — neither cold nor hot. Unidentifiable the rest of the year, these trees abruptly become as apparent as the red-capped ear cleaners of Turkman Gate Bazar. Semal is among the 252 species of trees found in the Delhi region (Poor New York has only 130!). The tiered branches shoot out from the trunk like the ribs of a parasol. Look out for semal in Delhi’s diplomatic avenues, such as Neeti
City Season – Floss Silk Flowers, Around Town Nature by The Delhi Walla - October 27, 20230 Season's shade. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Blue is marrying into green, and green is marrying into pink. Here, near Humayun’s tomb. The blue constitutes the dome of the centuries-old Neela Gumbad; the green is the lush foliage of the surrounding trees. These two elements exist throughout the year. The pink is a guest, belonging to this season. Floss silk flowers are in bloom. This same pink is smeared thicker, wider some distance away in Lodhi Garden, which has a great number of floss silk trees. The flowers fall continually, discreetly, making the grassy ground beneath the trees smoulder like a bed of pink-hot coals. This afternoon, in one of the remoter expanses within the garden, far from the walking tracks,
City Season – Saptaparni Blossoms, Around Town Nature by The Delhi Walla - October 18, 20230 In search of flowers. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Last night was a violent night, à la Wuthering Heights. There was thunder, lightning, and for a few minutes the hissing wind raged like a storm. This overcast morning, unlike the sunny morning yesterday, the ground under the tree is barely littered with its flowers. Perhaps most of the blossoms were swept away by the storm. The tree that until the day before was full of flowers is bare of them, here near Ashram crossing. Hopefully the short season of saptaparni, lasting from mid-October to December, shall not meet a premature end. And this saptamarni tree will be re-decked with flowers. Unlike the golden-yellow Amaltases or the red Gulmohurs, saptaparni flowers aren’t attention