In the best kind of company

How many of us know about India’s iconic trees? Pressed hard to think, one will probably recall the Great Banyan of Kolkata or Mahabodhi at Bodhgaya from school books. Those who have travelled to the Northeast may have also seen the root bridges in Meghalaya. But how many of us know which is the scientifically recorded oldest living tree in India (a 2023-year-old Himalayan pencil cedar at Keylong)? Or that an Indian tree holds the world record for offering the largest canopy, spanning over nearly three football fields (Thimmamma Marrimanu at Anantapur)? Scientist S Natesh spent nearly a decade looking for such iconic trees after he retired from government service. He first shortlisted 300 of them, narrowed down the number further and visited each of them in their natural habitat before chronicling the stories of 75 such trees in India.

They are iconic not only because of their dimensions or rarity. They attain such a status because of the stories they carry. They are part of India’s cultural heritage and bear testimony to history. Their stories are uncommon, growing beyond economic and ecological values. For instance, did you know that it was Tipu Sultan who introduced 16 species of eucalyptus to Nandi Hills? “For us, built heritage takes precedence over natural heritage and we consider buildings to be more important than living trees. We should have a national register of heritage trees and celebrate those trees with community participation,” says Natesh. “In the absence of such a register, we will not even know what we lost."

1. India's loneliest tree

At a tiny hamlet near Tangmarg in Jammu and Kashmir stands India’s loneliest tree — a 25-m tall giant sequoia, the most massive single-stemmed tree on earth. Towering over the surrounding deodars and Himalayan white pines, this is the only such tree in India and probably in the entire Southeast Asia.

How did this lone tree — restricted to high elevation (1,220–2,440 metres) on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains of California — come to be in the woods of Kashmir? While there are no documented records, locals say it may have been introduced by one of the British officials who used to camp at the Yarikha village — where the tree is located — on their way to the ski resort of Gulmarg. Scientific estimates put the tree’s age at around 80-90 years.

Although the tree bears both male and female cones, no one has ever seen a seedling, possibly because it cannot produce enough pollen to successfully pollinate the female cones. Natural reproduction in sequoia is known to be weak and average seed viability is very low. Although the solitary giant sequoia is acclimatised to Kashmir’s weather, it is unable to regenerate naturally.

2. Kunti's parijata

A large and ancient African baobab in Uttar Pradesh’s Kintoor village is venerated as Parijata by the locals who believe the tree was brought to the earth from Indra's celestial garden by Arjuna to fulfil his mother Kunti's wish to worship Lord Shiva with its flower. According to legend, the parijata emerged during the churning of the ocean (Samudra Manthana) and its flowers are said to have such extraordinary fragrance that those who approach it remember their past lives. In popular culture, several trees such as the night jasmine, baobab and Indian coral trees are considered the parijata.

The tree, with a squat trunk having a massive girth of 13 m, has been radio-carbon-dated. Its age is over 800 years old, which makes it one of the two oldest and most accurately dated baobab trees outside of Africa. For years, the locals have believed in the divine power of the tree. In 2020, they were sure that the pandemic would die down since the tree had flowered. A decade ago, the baobab was found to be suffering from fungal and bacterial infection due to the offerings of sweets and milk by the devotees. Scientists at CSIR National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, treated the giant and put it back on the road to recovery.

3. Sleeman’s tree for hanging thugs

A nondescript village near Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh bears a rather unusual name of Sleemanabad. Only a few history buffs are familiar with the tales of Colonel William Henry Sleeman, tasked by the East Indian Company in the 19th century to get rid of the thuggee menace. For decades, thugs — considered a ritualistic evil cult by the foreigners — gave sleepless nights to colonial rulers, who effectively used the image of the thuggee as proof of the 'backwardness of India' to justify colonisation.

Under Sleeman's leadership, some 4,500 men stood trial for thuggee crimes between 1826 and 1848. Of these, 504 were hanged. In Jabalpur and Sagar alone, there were 146 executions between 1830 and 1832. Some of the ‘thugs’ were hanged on a peepal tree in the current Sleemanabad police station. The tree’s age is estimated to be over 220 years. The tree doesn’t have an imposing structure and the branches used for hanging fell off years ago, leaving permanent scars. However, Sleeman was a popular figure in this part of the world. He purchased 96 acres of land for the poor and people named the village after him out of affection. Post-independence, a relook at the cult cast doubts on the veracity of British claims about thugs. The tree has thus stood as a mute spectator to a violent period in history.

4. The 'bee tree' at Hoskote

Over a decade ago when Karnataka decided to establish a Special Economic Zone at Nandagudi in Bengaluru Rural district, it faced strong protests from local farmers who grow grains, fruits, vegetables and flowers in hundreds of acres of fertile lands where the SEZ was to be set up. The villagers claimed they used to get five harvests in a year, instead of four, all due to millions of bees living in that area with most of them staying in a single large banyan tree.

The ‘bee tree’ at Ramagovindapura in Hoskote taluk houses up to 630 hives housing 45 million to 63 million giant honeybees — a world record. The numbers have increased steadily since 1998. Globally, animal pollination is responsible for 35% of all food production, and insects, particularly bees, provide the majority of such pollination. The area in and around Ramagovindapura has a high concentration of nesting giant bees — as many as 2,000 colonies have been detected here on eleven trees within a 5.7-kilometre radius, but there is no reason known to scientists why one particular tree has been favoured.

5. Kabir’s gigantic banyan

Just about 18 kilometres east of the ancient city of Bharuch in Gujarat, the Narmada River bifurcates to accommodate a small island of silt. On this island grows a gigantic banyan tree that is among the largest trees on earth and is associated with the 15th-century saint, poet and social reformer Kabir Das. One legend says the tree sprouted from a discarded twig used by Kabir as a toothbrush. According to another, the tree came to life from a dead stump after water used to wash Kabir’s feet was poured on it.

Whatever may be its origin, Kabir’s banyan is one of the largest banyans on earth in terms of net canopy coverage. The main trunk has been lost over the years and now several independent trees exist with conspicuous gaps in the canopy allowing other tree species to grow. Over 200 years ago, a British historian observed more than 350 false trunks, each one ‘thicker than an English oak tree’, in addition to 3,000 smaller stems. The ancient tree has survived years of flood and soil erosion, but its life is a stressful one at the moment, thanks to growing human activities.

6. The world’s tallest rhododendron

One day in April 1985, two Angamai Naga friends were climbing the Japfü peak in Nagaland when they came across a Nithu tree — a scarlet-blossomed rhododendron. They were familiar with the tree as between March and May each year, various types of rhododendrons set the Japfü alight with their purple, white, pink, yellow and scarlet blooms. However, they were intrigued by its height. After much coaxing, the forest department measured the height and found it to be 32.9 mt (108 ft), as tall as a nine-storied building. It found a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s tallest rhododendron.

The tree didn’t stop growing. It rose to over 38 mt (125 mt) a decade later but no subsequent measurement has been carried out. Sadly, this priceless arborescent treasure — which may well be the flagship for Nagaland’s conservation and tourism programmes — is largely unheralded and in a state of neglect. Neither the administration nor the local communities have taken measures to protect it from vandals and inform tourists about its beauty.

7. Livingstone’s legacy in Mumbai

In the busy Fort area of Mumbai, two ancient mahogany trees bear testimony to Scottish explorer David Livingstone’s visit to the port city in 1865. The trees stand on the footpath on the busy Kaikhushru Dubash Marg close to a row of buildings on one side. In their native environment in the Americas (from Mexico to Brazil), mahogany trees grow to an immense size — as tall as 45 metres and between three and four metres in girth — but here they are much stunted. Haphazard and mindless disfigurement of their beautiful crown and limb over the years — obviously to prevent damage to the buildings nearby and accommodate the teeming traffic on this road — have added to their sorry look.

Livingstone entered the harbour in June 1865 in his little steamer, the Lady Nyassa concluding a voyage of 2,500 miles (approximately 4,000 kilometres) lasting 45 days from Zambesi, East Africa. He was the governor’s guest and spent more than a month in the city visiting Matheran and Nashik in between. He is believed to have planted those trees at the request of the governor.

8. The raintree of Bronson Boarding House

It is difficult to imagine Bengaluru without its raintrees. They are on the street sides, parks and public places with their branches soaring in the sky. But the one at Taj West End — the city’s oldest hotel — is noteworthy for several reasons, including holding a record for its age.

When an affable British lady Ms Bronson decided to open the 10-bedded Bronson Boarding House in 1887, the tree was already there. As the tree grew at the site, so did the clientele of the inn, requiring expansion. The raintree was just 64 years old when the boarding house changed hands in 1912. And it continued to grow. Over the years, the tree has seen virtually everyone: royalty, the well-heeled, international celebrities and corporate czars have rubbed shoulders under its ample canopy. Sir Winston Churchill came here as a war correspondent. Sir Ronald Ross wrote the cure for malaria here and went on to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1902. David Lean used this place to film A Passage to India. Prince Charles was a guest here. For Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan, it was a healing retreat after he was injured on the sets of the film Coolie.

The tree is nearly 176 years old now and continues to be a major attraction. Its shiny green, twice-divided leaves are sensitive to light and continue to amuse visitors by folding together from dusk to dawn. The ‘sleeping’ movements — technically known as nyctinasty — happen as a response to darkness and occur rhythmically, following a 24-hour cycle.

9. Gurudev’s weeping fig tree

Six years after he won the Nobel Prize, Rabindranath Tagore made his maiden trip to Bengaluru where he was given a grand civic ceremony under the canopy of a giant weeping fig tree at Lalbagh. It still stands near the main entrance of the Lalbagh Botanical Garden. Bengaluru has several grand specimens of the weeping fig, but the grandest are the ones in Lalbagh. At the time of Tagore’s visit in 1919, there were eight trees at the site, four on either side at the entry point to the oval garden. By the 1980s, three were gone and now only this one survives.

The book, 'Iconic Trees Of India: 75 Natural Wonders' authored by S Natesh and illustrated by Sagar Bhowmick was published recently by Roli Books. It is priced at Rs 1,995.