Tree spotting in Lalbagh

Tree spotting in Lalbagh
Deccan Herald

Bangalore Walks has become a popular weekend jaunt for many new comers to the City to get to know our history in the most interesting way - on a walk.

Bangalore Walks has become a popular weekend jaunt for many new comers to the City to get to know our history in the most interesting way - on a walk.

Arun Pai, the brain behind the concept has met with success holding these informative walks for the last couple of months. He recently added a new walk called the ‘Tree Spotting Guide’ in Lalbagh. Most old Bangaloreans have grown up going for picnics at Lalbagh and have family pictures from the annual flower shows but how many really know all about the trees in the garden?

The tree spotting guide walk was handled by the affable and knowledgeable Vijay Thiruvady.

The meeting point was the huge granite rock in the garden, which was chosen by Kempe Gowda in the 16th century to mark the City’s southern boundary. “The rock is three billion years old; more than half as old as the earth itself. In 1760 Haider Ali planted cypress and rose gardens and extended the park to 40 acres.

“In the 18th century Tipu Sultan started an exotic garden here bringing trees from Persia, Turkey and Africa. A mango tree that he planted still stands though half eaten by white ants. In the 19th century the British occupied the City and experts from Kew Gardens, London, managed the park for the last 100 years.

“In the 20th Century the park reverted to the Indian Government under the Mysore Maharaja. That is when Javaraya and Krumbiegal - a German botanist, planted serial blossoming trees from every continent. Look around you and point out five trees from different continents,” said Vijay of the group that had gathered for the walk.

Hands went up and in no time a Tabebuia from South America, a Raintree from Brazil, an African Tulip from East Africa and the flamboyant Gulmohur from Madagascar were noticed and identified.

With 1,854 species of trees and 180 acres of lake, Lalbagh is a national treasure in our City.

We walked down thandi sadak, which felt air-conditioned because of the huge ficus trees spreading their branches across. Vijay picked up a fallen fruit, whipped out a penknife and sliced the fruit open to us. “There are over 80 varieties of ficus that grow in the park and it is the sacred tree of India,” he said.

Further on, at the Glass House, he explained that it was a copy of the Crystal Palace in London. The garden was terraced in seven layers and all the parapet walls and buildings here built by Krumbiegal are inconspicuous to blend with the garden.

Vijay then took us onto the inner circle and showed us Juniper trees, the berries of which flavour gin. A little further we saw a couple of ficus trees with leaves that looked twisted and odd. We were told the leaf grows like a spoon and is called ‘Krishna’s tree’ as Krishna loved to eat butter in them. The tree had thrown roots, which had developed into full grown trees themselves.

Further on, the pretty Candle tree from Canada is covered with white flowers strangely on it’s trunk. The fruits of the tree are even stranger and look like candles on the trunk.

After the walk, a special breakfast at MTR was laid on as the grand finale. For details about this and other walks call Arun Pai: 98455-23660.