Nice Shots Raman Ji On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 7:36 AM, raman <[email protected]> wrote:
> South Indian Mahua is a variety of Mahua which is predominently found in > South India. It differs from the usual Mahua in that its leaves are > narrower. Mohua is one of the most important of Indian forest trees, not > because it may possess valuable timber - and it is hardly ever cut for this > purpose - but because of its delicious and nutritive flowers. It is a tree > of abundant growth and, to the people of Central India, it provides their > most important article of food as the flowers can be stored almost > indefinitely. It is large and deciduous with a thick, grey bark, vertically > cracked and wrinkled. Most of the leaves fall from February to April, and > during that time the musky-scented flowers appear. They hang in close > bunches of a dozen or so from the end of the gnarled, grey branchlets. The > reddish young leaves with the flower clusters look very attractive. The > flower stalks are green or pink and furry, about 5 cm. long. The > plum-coloured calyx is also furry and divides into four or five lobes; > within them lies the globular corolla, thick, juicy and creamy white. > Through small eyelet holes at the top, the yellow anthers can be seen. The > stamens are very short and adhere to the inner surface of the corolla; the > pistil is a long, protruding green tongue. It is at night that the tree > blooms and at dawn each short-lived flower falls to the ground. A couple of > months after the flowering period the fruit opens. They are fleshy, green > berries, quite large and containing from one to four shiny, brown seeds. > > Raman > -- Regards Dr Balkar Singh Head, Deptt. of Botany and Biotechnology Arya P G College, Panipat Haryana-132103 09416262964
