I am recent iNaturalist enthusiast. I have been using the Seek app to capture all the flora around me possible. It’s extremely fun to sight beautiful plants and flowers and trees and insects and save pictures on an app that rewards you with a badge to spot them. What a joy to be present in your surroundings!
It’s especially funderful in Bangalore- the city’s so green! So many trees and flowering trees at that! I absolutely enjoy walking down streets laden with flowers, watching parked cars freshly showered with with yellow trumpet flowers.
Here’s what’s interesting however: as reported in the photo article above, these trees, amongst most others are native to South America. To quote, “the Yellow Tabebuia is a species of Tabebuia native to South America in Suriname, Brazil, eastern Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, and northern Argentina. It blooms in Bengaluru between March and April.”
This is only one of the many species that aren’t of an Indian origin. If one walks around Jayanagar, which is central-south area of Bangalore, they will notice huge trees with bright orange flowers as shown below:
These are called the African Tulip Trees. Lo and behold, these aren’t native to India either. In the midst of writing this piece, I have stumbled across a wonderful journal that lists the flowering trees in Bangalore and mentions their origin. There’s only 3-4 of these that are native to the Indian subcontinent. Most belong to South America and South East Asia.
It’s amusing to find so many non-Indian flowering trees that densely populate urban Indian cities like Bangalore. Cities, as have been understood, are defined by their migrants. Yet, in most Indian metropolitans, or upcoming ones such as Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad, one would notice a movement against migrants, seeking reservations for the natives of the inhabiting State. It’s bewildering to watch these protests and demands take a place in a city laden with foreign trees.
Did the native trees also protest the inclusion of foreign species? What I am interested in learning about is how this phenomenon took place- I’m sure there are Indian trees too and they likely dominate (Is that something to hope for?) But how do foreign trees become native or become the city they are planted in? Gemini, my gal, has helped with some answers for the time being.
Apparently, only about 35% of the trees in Bangalore are native species. The “Garden city” as it has been referred to, has had a predominant preference for aesthetically pleasing, foreign species for their shade and ornamental value. As a follow-up to this piece, I am going to speak with botanists and/or naturalists to figure the history behind this phenomenon and the aftermath- was there an ecological protest? Have these beautiful non-natives done more harm than good?