As January approaches, many of our cities, especially Bangalore, start blooming with trees with pink flowers. These flowers are called ‘Tabebuia’ or ‘trumpet shaped flowers’. They get their name from the trumpet-like shape of their flowers.
The tree is originally South American and the British planted the trees in India to beautify our cities.
We have 3 different types of Tabebuia in our cities.
Dark pink variety flowers in December, light pink variety flowers around February and in peak summer flowers the yellow colour variety.
But why do the trees lose all their leaves when they flower?
The main task for any tree is to make flowers which turn into fruits, through which more trees are produced. The whole year, leaves make food and support the plant.
But in summer, the leaves start losing water through their surface. Plus, trees need energy to make fruits. The trees want to use all their stored energy to make flowers. So to save water and energy, trees lose leaves. And we get to see their such pretty avatar.
But why so many flowers at once?
The main job of trees is to make fruits which can make more trees. But for flowers to grow into fruits, flower pollination is important. That is, the male part from one flower, or pollen, should reach the female part of another flower, or stigma. But how will this happen?
This delivery is done by insects!
When insects visit flowers to feed on nectar, pollens from the flower stick to their body. When insects visit another flower, the stuck pollens get transferred to the female part of the flower. And this gives us fruits!
But trees have to attract insects to themselves. If there were only a few flowers on these trees, would you have stopped and clicked their photos? Similarly, insects will get attracted to a few flowers or to a tree which is just blooming with flowers?
But are these trees flowering earlier every year? Maybe. Scientists are already working on understanding if they are. If you would like to contribute to understanding the timing of these flowers, let us know in the comments or email us and we will send you the details.
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