NATURE ON APRIL

I must have muddled my calender of flowering trees in believing that the flame tree and the coral come into flower at the same time as the semul.They do not the semul comes first.The coral and flame blossom almost a month later.By baisakhi silk semuls have almost entirely shed their blossoms while the flame and the coral are in their best finery.By then bauhinia beans are ready for plucking.Trees that flower at the same time as flames and corals are jacarands widely planted in new delhi.You have to see them in a cluster to catch the lapis-lazuli blue of their tiny bell-shaped flowers.There are a few in the roundabout facing parliament house on sansad marg,avenues of them along the safdarjung flyover,on siri fort road and in new residential areas.They can be seen at their best between the first and third weeks of the month.

Soon after baisakhi,the first crop of mangoes grows around delhi appear in the market.They are soldom very sweet or succulent.It takes the searing heat of summer to bring them to their full richness of taste and colour.More there are in the process of shedding old leaves and donning new once,coming to flower and being deflowered.What could have induced new delhis master-gardener,lancaster,to import sausage trees from east africa and planet them in delhi?Sausage trees can be seen along amrita shergill marg and many other avenues.It is a singularly ugly tree with exude a maladorous oil and bear solid sausage fruit for witch neither man nor bird nor beast have any use.Its flowers are said to open up at night and begin to close up by midmorning.Apparently fruit-bats relish their taste.Some rural folk make a paste out of its fruit and use it against skin eruptions.

In the last days of the month the first gulmohar blooms begin to peep out of their green casings.The gulmohar derives its latin name ponciana regia from M. de poinci, a governor of the French Antilles in the mid-seventeenth centuyr.The tree is a native of Madagascar.It has become the great favourite amongst flowering trees beacause of its flamboyant display of fiery red and orange.Cannaught place has a cluster of these trees and they are now grown extensively in most new residential colonies.

The summer heat and lamp rouse serpents from their hilbernation.Delhi has all the three spices of the must venomous snakes;cobras,vipers and kraits.It also has others which are quite harmless to humans but prey on mans worst enimies-rats and mice.One warm afternoon i went to see arpana caur,a young painter working in the artists colony at garhi.The studios are built along the walls of this ancient robber fortress.In between is an open space,now lush with grass and cannas.As i entered i saw a gang of urchins hurling stones,brandishing sticks and yelling as they ran towards a snake basking on the lawn.Before i could stop them they had beaten the poor reptile into a bloody mess.They cried triumphantely.It was a small orange-coloured snake with diamond-shaped black sports-a full-grown diadem.It was too late to tell the children that like many other snakes of delhi it was not only harmless but also a well-meaning reptile.