Green jewel bug

A bright green spot flew in front of me and landed on a tree which gives a characteristic redolence to this time of transition between sharad and hemant, the night-blooming jasmine (Nyctanthes arbor-tristis, parijat in Hindi and Odia, shiuli in Bengali, xewali in Assamese). When it landed I could see that the shiny green spot was a green jewel bug (Chrysocoris stollii, aka the lychee shield bug). I haven’t identified any of the other 450 jewel bugs, so I can’t be certain. But this had characteristic markings, and the colour, of what I was told was the C. stollii.

Of course one can do better these days, I realized as soon as I wrote that sentence. A little search with the help of google mamu told me quickly that the markings on the back were not of the C. pulchellus or C. patricius. I’m glad I did that check, because I found that in 2017 I’d posted misidentified photos; those smaller bugs were probably C. patricius. I’m also pretty certain now that this is not the C. purpureus, since that should be purple, as its name suggests. Could it be the C. hahn? The pictures I came across are confused, and I can’t figure out whether this is different. But let me go with C. stollii, for now, especially since it is supposed to be the most abundant of jewel bugs in India.

So what do I know about it? It is a bug, not a beetle, although the green shield could mislead you. If you look carefully, you’ll see that there is no mid-line parting on its shield; a beetle will have a divided back. You can also try to distinguish them by counting the number of segments on legs and antennae. Since it drinks sap from plants, it is considered a pest. My fund of knowledge runs out pretty fast. I must look for more bugs, this is a season for insects anyway.

Spring in the air

I woke this morning to the definite feeling that spring was here in full bloom. My nose was blocked, my eyes were watering. Hay fever, means pollen, means flowers. This is definitely not the virus, but my own body reacting to spring. It’ll have passed by mid morning. In my balcony the jasmine plant had begun to flower, the little white vincas are in bloom. In a little patch of ground below the flat I can smell the parijat, the night flowering jasmine. Looking out over the garden in front of us, the banyan tree is full of fruit, the mango tree is bursting into bloom, there are red coral flowers on top of a sea of green. In the mountains the musk rose, the peony, daffodils, must be in bloom. I stood on our balcony and stared at the deep blue sky flecked with clouds. I’ve never seen Mumbai look so beautiful. Today is a bad day, I can’t keep my mind from thinking of traveling up to the mountains, walking in the open.

The Indian Garden

As I sit and complete the last few jobs on my laptop, I can smell the fragrance of the night-blooming parijat (shefali in Eastern India) from a bush below the balcony. This has a made up name in English: night-flowering Jasmine. I can easily distinguish its smell from that of the Jasmine (mogra) which grows in a pot in my balcony. I love these, but they are so close to where I’m sitting that they drown out the milder fragrance of the champa (frangipani) from a tree a little further away. There is no rajnigandha (tuberose) in the neighbourhood, otherwise this fragrant duet which I’m writing about would have been overcome by its heady smell.

The traditional Indian garden is a place you can enjoy even with your eyes closed. All these flowers are white, and not very photogenic, so they never appeared in the old Bollywood movies where the hero and heroine would run through a colourful garden (except in the 40 year old hit called Rajnigandha).

Its time for me to shut down the laptop and pack it up. My next post will either be from China, or after I return.