Green and gold caught my eyes as we drove in the damp heat of the early afternoon through Manas National Park. It may be early spring in astronomical terms, with the days still getting longer, but as seasons are counted in these eastern foothills of Assam, it was high summer. Monsoon was less than a month away. Most trees had already shed their spring leaves, and had begun to flower. But was this the flower of the tree?
I had to tear my eyes away from the lovely flowers to take in a larger picture. Did the leaves and flower actually grow from the tree? They were carried on rather thin woody stalks. But would such thin stalks ever grow directly from the main trunk of a tree? Normally a trunk branches multiple times before you come to leaf-bearing or flower-bearing stalks.
Pull back a little further. It becomes clearer. No the flowers do not belong to the tree. It is a silk cotton tree (Ceiba pentandra, earlier Bombax ceiba). In this place it is late in its flowering season. Some of the smaller trees are still flowering, some are fruiting, some are still releasing their lovely silky parachutes into the air, but giants like this are past all that and are already prepared for the monsoon. The flowers are orchids growing over the tree. A little search, and you find that they are golden-flowered dendrobium (Dendrobium chrysanthum). Orchids are said not to harm the trees they grow on. They have green leaves, so they produce their own sugars. Their roots are said to penetrate only the bark of the tree. It is said that they don’t tap into the wood. I wonder then where they get water from? Roots of plants which grow into soil search widely for water. It seems that orchids specialize in pulling moisture from the air.
I pull back further. The whole jungle is full of trees carrying various kinds of orchids. Many are flowering. Something clicks into place. I’ve seen flowering orchids in the Himalayas during winter, when it often rains. Now, here in the plains below the mountains, I see them just before the monsoon. They flower when the air is damp. Most plants require a lot of stored sugar and water for their flowers and fruits. That’s what is happening here, in this hot damp place. The flowers will fruit and produce their wind-borne seeds at about the time the monsoon winds begin to blow. On this vast scale, I begin to admire the small orchids, the large trees, and the vast jungle and the climate they are in. They shape each other.
Beautiful flowers, awesome tree, wonderful post. Thank you for sharing!
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Thank you. A pleasure
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Wonderful pictures and flowers are really beautiful. The connection described made the picture more interesting.
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Thank you
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Wonderful post! The flowers are very beautiful, especially in the close up. From a distance, I’m reminded of the resurrection ferns that grow on our live oaks.
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Thank you I haven’t seen the ferns, though what I read is impressive
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Love this write up and how you made us imagine puling back and then seeing the jungle. Lovely!! Thank you for joining and sharing. See you around in today’s edition.
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Thank you
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Awww….these orchids…..LOVE them too much….they bloom in our Shillong home.
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Thanks. Yes, Meghalaya is another great place for orchids
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Lovely connection to your earlier post, ties everything together well
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Thanks. Glad you noticed the connection
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Those are so pretty. I love the yellow 😀
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Thanks. Aren’t they lovely!
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What beautiful flowers! And your description of how and where they grow reminds me so much of the cloud forest we visited in Costa Rica. We were told that as many as 200 different plants, such as orchids and epiphytes, can grow on a single tree!
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Yes, high forests tend to be crowded like that
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Beautiful!! The slow step back from Orchid to Tree to Jungle gives a wonderful perspective of the habitat.
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Thanks. It also repeats how I saw it 🙂
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