Could see the vultures and the Sterculia fruit adopted the shape of vulture. Madhuri
--- On Sun, 11/9/11, ushadi Micromini <[email protected]> wrote: From: ushadi Micromini <[email protected]> Subject: [efloraofindia:81306] Malvaceae week 0905 - 9112011 UD 032 Pterygota alata and 033 Pterygota alata var irregularis To: "efloraofindia" <[email protected]>, "Gurcharan Singh" <[email protected]>, "Balkar Arya" <[email protected]> Date: Sunday, 11 September, 2011, 11:37 PM Malvaceae week 0905 - 9112011 UD 032 Pterygota alata and 033 Pterygota alata var. irregularis Dear ALL: Submitting an interesting tree and its variant … Family: Malvaceae Subfamily: Sterculioideae Genus: Pterygota Species 1: Pterygota alata 2: Pterygota alata var. irregularis These trees grow very tall, have the typical sterculoid leaves… and both develop the seed pod that’s called the Boddha’s coconut … #1: , the regular p. alata happens to be deciduous….looses all its leaves, being the tallest it provides a look out perch for the vultures… After some years of dwindling number they had disappeared for a few years… reappearing to nest in the victoria memorial gardens in Kolkata… and vicinity… And they used to perch on three pterygota alata trees we have there… we use to go and count through the seacon.. to assure ourselves that they were there to stay… They are in figure 6 and 7… towards end of spring in April. #2 : The most interesting Pterygota is the PAGLA gachh… or the mad tree… so called because None of its leaves match each other, each one is different… And its not deciduous… you’ll notice in the pictures that 20 percent or so leaves are turning brown… ready to fall… These digital pics are from 2007 fig 1, 2) and 2011 (fig 3 and 4) all from the Hort gardens… see the label /Placard has changed… and fig number 5 is from Kolkata Bot G, beginning of summer each. enjoy, Usha di
