I sat on an extremely comfortable stone bench on the porch of Hampi’s Vitthala temple. It was just past noon, and the day had got really warm. But a cool breeze blew through the porch. I didn’t feel like getting up. In the courtyard in front of me a gnarly champa tree had been planted too close to the temple, and had grown out at an angle before reaching out for sunlight. The almost bare tree made a pretty picture in the afternoon, and I craned to catch the tree and its shadow together.
This was the Plumeria obtusa, once a native of the Caribbean, but now so well established in Asia that you will surprise most people if you tell them that it is not native to this continent. This particular tree was probably very young; they grow fast. But I wondered whether the Vijayanagara kingdom ever saw the Champa. It could not have come here before Europeans landed in the Caribbeans. But who brought it to India? The history of southern India is so much more complex, gnarly, and branched than that of the north. It could have come from the west, carried by the Portuguese, or even before them by the Arabs. Or it could have come from the East, carried to China first and then diffusing through the continent. In the months after I took these photos I’ve searched on and off for the answer, without finding any. If you have some snippets of information it’ll be great if you leave a comment.
I’m fascinated that this is a young tree. It is, as you say, so gnarled, and this usually goes with older specimens. I wonder why it grows this way?
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There are many possibilities. One is that the woodiness is a response to the extremely dry weather.
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Funny how this tree has featured in TWO blogs today . Happiness and food .com features a #ThursdayTreeLove photo feature and has posted this exact same tree from Hampi!
And you’re right about it being a part of our flora . I too thought it was as native as they come .
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Thanks for the pointer. That’s a lovely photo, but not of the same tree. Still a happy coincidence that another champa tree from the same temple pops up in the same week. 🙂
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I don’t but wish I did. Wouldn’t that be an epic tale, history of the world told from a trees perspective. What they see in a trees lifetime.
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Indeed it might. It depends on the tree, I guess. Some live shorter lifetimes than a human’s.
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I lived in the Pacific Northwest in the US around giant old Redwoods and sort of forget that part.
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Those are the ancient ones. But there are also apple and pear trees.
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Very true. I don’t know how long those live? The oldest I’ve seen are wild olive trees!
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Some pear trees live only two or three decades; they are the short lived species.
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I’m grateful to have read your post and to have had more conversations here in the comments. All things I did not know but value knowing now. Thank you
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You’re welcome
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