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The Hindu
3 days ago
- General
- The Hindu
Madras Day series on natural history: a survivor at the Marina
At the Marina beach, an old man warming a low wall mounted with a steel grille finds a silent companion in an old Neermaruthu tree. The tree stands in a garden enclosed by this wall. The two seem connected at more than a physical level. They are at comparable life stages. The old man has weariness of time weighing down on him, getting by on a walker, which he has kept next to him, as a setting sun douses him in a gentle light. Bent and wizened not as much by age as vandalism, the tree seems to stretch out towards the ebbing sun. Its buttress has been chewed out, and in the huge hollow, an opportune young Peepal tree grows. The inside of the hollowed-out buttress bears a burnt look, the black inside contrasting with the natural whiteness on the outer surface of the intact buttress and the trunk. T.D. Babu, key member of tree conservation organisation Nizhal and a member of the Chennai District Green Council, points out that this old tree makes a commentary on the landscape. Being an indicator species, it is a trusted chronicler of the landscape's history, now rudely overshadowed by development. This tree stands at a section of the Marina, where a life-size statue of Bharathiyar does too. To its west, the tree finds the office of the Water Resources Department located on the other side of Kamarajar Salai. Cooum river is not too far from the scene. To the north, the tree finds the river entering under the Napier bridge, holding hands with the thick waters of the Buckingham Canal before bounding down the last stretch merrily towards the sea. Babu explains that Neermaruthu (Terminalia Arjuna; called in everyday conversations across India as Arjuna) is a species found along rivers and other waterways, largely along the coast. This tree was not planted and occurred naturally and is therefore an iconic representation of the landscape's intrinsic character. In the olden days, the Cooum and the sea would have interacted way more differently than they do now, and the former's contours would have changed over the centuries. Stands of Neermaruthu trees in the vicinity of the Cooum in a pre-development era could not be ruled out. This lone, old tree is probably the rare one to survive this development. With whatever vim it has, this tree ought to be protected for the living showcase of natural history that it is.
The Hindu
03-05-2025
- General
- The Hindu
A silken touch to the landscape
Silk cotton (Ceiba pendantra) trees are having a productive spell now in Chennai, and they better make the most of it, as they would soon slip into obscurity and that would be their lot when they are not sporting the eye-catching seed pods. From lining avenues in Chennai, they have been reduced to scattered insignificance. On Anderson Road, one will come across a stand of three silk cotton trees, pointing to their preferred status in the past as avenue trees. Now, they live unseen and are usually ignored except when they put out their seed pods. The seed pods, elongated and oval-shaped, are green in the flush of youth, and turn brownish and open up exposing bright-white, extremely fibres when mature. Silk cotton trees can now be seen giving up their fibres, the brown-coloured pods breaking open. There are some trees that have a mix of mature and immature pods; and some, such as the one at a gated community on Santhome High Road, displays a profusion of still-young seed pods (they did on April 25, 2025). But they could have matured since the last time they were seen, the natural process being accelerated naturally. T.D. Babu, tree conservationist and a member of the Chennai District Green Council, notes an unfounded argument placed against the tree led to its unpopularity. 'Word spread without any basis that the fluffy fibres would aggravate respiratory problems,' says Babu, suggesting that it was a case of giving a dog a bad name and hanging him. And some Ceiba pendantra trees have been lost on account of infrastructure work. 'We lost five trees along Royapettah High Road, near the Luz Church Road-Kutchery Road junction, due to Metro rail project,' says Babu. He says the loss of Ceiba pendantra is not just loss of green cover, but a loss to sustainability. Silk cotton trees (also known as kapok trees) were intricately and inextricably tied to a mundane, everyday of life — sleep and rest. Before the proliferation of foam-based mattresses and pillows, those made with ilavam panju (silk cotton) were ubiquitous. 'We are living in times when we hear of how mattresses, foam-based mattresses are among the major pollutants of marine waters, and we cannot help thinking of how easy the silk cotton mattresses were on the environment. A silk cotton mattress would never leave a home. When the silk cotton in a mattress has grown old, lost its suppleness and therefore its cushioning effect, it would be removed and dried and it would then go into making pillows. The mattress would be filled with fresh silk cotton. When a mattress has become irredeemable, the cloth would be stitched into pillow covers. Nothing ever left a home,' recalls Babu. On Besant Avenue Road, at Rajaji Bhavan, maintained by Central Public Works Department and housing government offices, one finds tall Ceiba pendantra trees. The trees are reportedly around from the time the facility was established, which was in the late 1990s. According to someone who has seen these trees grow, they give up their branches in cyclone-induced gusty conditions. And he believes that this quality makes them an unfavourable choice as avenue trees.
