Some foresters seemed to have difficulty germinating neem seeds, while others found that the neem seeds collected from bird droppings germinated well. To test this, foresters from the Forest Resource Institute in Dehradun tried out a hilarious experiment with chickens in 1938, trying to get them to eat neem fruits. Not surprisingly, the chickens ‘turned up their beaks in scorn’. The poor birds were then put on a starvation diet and again offered the fruit. Despite being desperately hungry, they refused the fruits, but finally ate them when they were disguised in flour. The forester then waited for days, feeding the birds hearty meals and closely inspecting the droppings. But days after the seeds were consumed, they could see no sign of them in the droppings. The unobliging birds were finally returned to their owners, which must have relieved the chickens tremendously.
Bizarre germination experiments aside, the neem is favoured for planting in cities for a variety of reasons. Neem is an easy species to raise and a hardy tree that can survive nibbling by goats and cattle—a constant hazard in Indian cities. It is also popular because of the belief that the tree provides healthy air and purifies water. The tree is resistant to pollution as well. Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, Mahatma Gandhi’s abode for many years, was planted with neem trees by a resident, Totaram. Neem was a favourite of Gandhi’s and he ate neem chutney regularly. On Gandhi’s suggestion, Totaram collected neem seedlings from villages around, planted them with care and gave them water from the Sabarmati, on whose banks the ashram was situated. Neem trees stand tall in the ashram even today.
Neem has also made it to the deserts of Africa and the Middle East. In Sudan, as far back as 1939, an account in the Indian Forester talks of widespread planting of the neem, which was used for firewood and for timber to build houses. The largest neem plantation with 50,000 trees over 10 sq. km was undertaken in the Plain of Arafat in Saudi Arabia, to provide shade to the millions who camp here during the Haj pilgrimage. This was one of the rare trees that could withstand the harsh and dry climate, even temperatures up to 50° C. It is fascinating that a tree from India was chosen to provide shade to Haj pilgrims. In northern Australia, though, it has become an invasive species, spreading into waterways and choking them. It has now been declared a noxious weed in some areas and the Australian government puts in much effort into controlling its spread. It is strange that what is so prized in one location is deeply disliked and damaging in another.
The neem continues to be a tree of everyday use in India. There is now a growing movement in some cities to return to the eco-friendly datun (neem toothbrush), which can be used and disposed of, and is plastic-free compared to the toothbrushes of today. There is also a village called Danton on the border of West Bengal and Odisha. The story goes that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the Hindu mystic and saint, while on a pilgrimage to the temple town of Puri in Odisha, halted for the night at this village. The next morning, he used the twigs of the neem to clean his teeth, giving the village the name Danton.
The tree is a pharmacy in itself. Fermented toddy can be made using neem as well, in addition to the more common palm. Gum or resin can be tapped from the tree by making a wound in the bark. Some older trees, meanwhile, exude the gum naturally. When this happens, a phenomenon referred to as weeping, the gum is much prized, collected and stored as a tonic. Neem oil can also be sprayed as a natural pesticide in gardens. Strangely though, the tree is not always able to protect itself from a fungal or insect attack. In Bengaluru, a fungal disease known as dieback of neem is causing these trees to dry up. In Hyderabad, neem trees are being attacked by a parasite, Loranthus (honeysuckle mistletoe), and by the scale insect Aonidiella orientalis. So, if you notice any blighting of twigs and flowers, or rotting of fruit, the neem may need you to turn pharmacist and help it out.
Alan Butterworth in Some Madras Trees, published in 1911, says about the neem that it is, ‘One of the commonest tree of the country, so common that I hesitate to describe it were it not that a friend of mine reached the rank of Acting Collector without knowing the tree.’ This should continue to be unacceptable. We should all know about the neem, its many benefits and perhaps spend more time under its canopy to get to know it better.
Neem (Azadirachta indica)
Description: Medium-sized tree with a shady canopy. Trunk is short with a fissured bark that is dark grey on the outside.
Flowers: Tiny and fragrant with creamish-white petals.
Fruits: Egg-shaped fruit about 1–2 cm long, with a little pulp around a hard seed. Green initially but turns yellow when ripe.
Leaves: Feather-like, slightly curved with serrated edges.
Seasonality: Evergreen, though the tree does shed some leaves in the dry season. Flowers can start appearing in February, extending to May. Fruits ripen between June and August.
Family: Meliaceae. Family has several species whose timber is of high value, such as mahogany trees.
Origin and distribution: Origins not entirely clear, but it is found across India, except in places with frost.
Recipe for Ugadi Gojju or Pachadi
Carefully extract neem flowers from the stalk, making sure there are no stems. (One way to do this is to pick them off one by one. Another easier way, if you are cooking in bulk, is to place the entire stem with flowers on to a damp white towel. The flowers will stick to the towel and can be later shaken off.) Take a deep-bottomed kadai (thick saucepan) and heat a couple of tablespoons of ghee. Add the neem flowers and roast at medium heat until the flowers turn reddish. Add half a cup of watery tamarind pulp, a slit green chilli and cook for ten minutes. Add salt (to taste), a pinch or spoon of red chilli powder (depending on how spicy you want it) and a small walnut-sized lump of jaggery. Cook till the jaggery dissolves. In a separate vessel, add ghee and some mustard seeds for seasoning. Once the mustard seeds splutter, add fenugreek seeds, asafoetida, curry leaves and a dried red chilli or two, roasting the mix for a couple of minutes on low flame. Turn off the flame and add the seasoning to the pachadi.
SEVENTEEN
AN INORDINATE
FONDNESS
FOR TREES
British ecologist J.B.S. Haldane, a giant in the field of evolutionary biology, is credited with saying that God must have an inordinate fondness for beetles, since there were so many kinds of beetles in the world. We can safely presume, perhaps, that God also has an inordinate fondness for trees—given the number and kinds there are in the world.
There are tall trees and short ones, fat-trunked giants and skinny-stemmed upstarts, species that grow furiously but die fast and those that grow slowly but live for thousands of years. Some trees have massive leaves that you can use to dine on, while others have thousands of tiny leaves, or even spiky, needle-like protrusions that look nothing like leaves at all. Some like the silk-cotton tree have majestic buttress roots, which make great living drums for forest tribes to thump on, signalling to others in the distant forest. Others like the neem have narrow tap roots that burrow deep into the ground, leaving no visible sign on the surface; stilt roots like mangrove trees, holding the tree above the surface of salt water; or aerial prop roots like the banyan, growing down from the branches into the soil and helping it to spread across acres. Some trees emit latex that is deadly, while the gum of others is pleasant to taste and can be used in cooking or as medicine.
What stimulates this incredible variety in trees?
The shape, size, type of leaf, time of flowering, leafing and fruiting, type of trunk, bark and root, number of seeds, nature of pollination and dispersal, colour of the flower—all are called traits of the plant or tree. They serve different purposes. The total number and variety of traits are far too much to capture in one chapter, let alone in a single book. A global plant trait database called TRY, hosted by Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and Future Earth, contains information on 6.9 million traits for 148,000 plant species for instance. But it is still interesting to learn about a few of these traits, which can help us understand why some of our favourite trees look and
behave the way they do.
Seed size and shape determines the type of dispersal, how far a plant can move away from its parent and how long it can survive without the right kind of soil, sun or water. Seeds that are small and light, like those of the silk-cotton tree, can be easily blown away in the wind and move far away from the parent plant. But if they land in the wrong place, they do not have enough food stored to survive long periods of stress. Seeds like that of the coconut are large and well-protected by a husk. The coconut usually grows in coastal areas, and the nuts fall into the sea water. The thick husk and hard shell help the seed survive for long periods in the harsh salt water, and protect it from being eaten by birds and fish. The water and flesh inside the coconut is rich in nutrients and helps nourish the seed while it germinates.
Leaves come in different shapes and sizes. Larger leaves catch more sunlight, which helps them produce more food. Trees with large leaves survive well in shaded areas, where they need to catch as much sunlight as they can. But if it’s too hot and dry, then it’s better to have small leaves, as larger leaves also have more surface area and thus lose more water. In cold areas, like in the mountains, where the air is very dry and windy, it is important to conserve water. Pines and other trees with needle-like or spiky leaves grow here. These needles are protected by waxy surfaces that help them retain water. The leaves themselves are thin and the surface is slippery, so that in times of heavy snow, the snow slides down without tearing off the leaves. Imagine a tree with leaves as tender as that of a banana plant in the cold mountains. Sounds like a bad idea!
The time when a tree sheds leaves and grows new ones is also an adaptation to the kind of environment in which a tree evolves. Deciduous trees are largely found in areas where there is a marked difference between seasons, with separate dry and wet seasons, or hot and cold seasons. During the cold or dry season, the trees shed leaves to conserve water. When the time is right, new leaves grow back. Interestingly, some trees like the neem and amla shed their leaves and act like deciduous trees during the hot summers in Delhi, but keep their leaves all year round, like evergreen trees, when they are in moist forests and in areas next to rivers. Pradip Krishen, in his book Trees of Delhi, points out that this duplicity confused the British, who planted these trees in the city thinking that they were evergreen, not realizing that there would be a brief time of the year when they would shed most of their leaves.
Avoiding being eaten by insects or animals is another important aspect on which many trees expend a great deal of effort and energy. Some trees like the silk cotton grow spiky thorns on their barks, particularly when they are young and more likely to be eaten by deer, cows and other browsers. Some trees ooze out a poisonous sticky sap from their leaves and bark when damaged. Others, like the eucalyptus, have leaves that taste nasty and can even be poisonous for insects and animals in their new homes in India. But insects co-evolve with trees and plants. In San Joaquim Valley in the USA, eucalyptus trees imported from Australia in the 1850s thrived for 150 years in an environment without pests that could attack them—until the red gum lerp psyllid, its native pest, managed to hitch-hike its way from Australia to California in 1998. The attack of the psyllids was devastating for the eucalyptus trees, until a tiny parasitic wasp (Psyllaephagus bliteus), which attacks the psyllid, was identified and brought over from Australia. The wasp ate the psyllid and the psyllid stopped attacking the tree—a long and complicated way to deal with problems caused by importing a species from one location to another.
Flowers use their colour, scent and shape to manipulate birds, insects and other feeders to spread their pollen and seeds around. Insect-pollinated trees have big, showy, colourful flowers with attractive scents that call in the insects from miles away. Bird-pollinated flowers rely on their looks. They are usually either mildly scented or without any scent. But wind-pollinated trees do not need to waste valuable energy on producing large, showy flowers. Their flowers are often small and delicate, though just as beautiful. Of course, to mix things up a bit, some trees are both wind- and insect-pollinated. Trees and plants with small-sized fruits have more flexibility in choice of the time of flowering and fruiting. But trees that bear large fruits need time for the fruits to grow, mature and produce seeds. They need to flower early and fruit early in the spring, so that before the cold weather sets in they can be ready with the seeds.
In cities, many (if not most) trees have been deliberately selected by people, often brought in and planted from distant parts of the world with quite different habitats. Many trees in Indian cities come from very different environments. In some cases this is a good thing for the tree—like the eucalyptus, which came to India but left its pests behind and is thus able to ward off local pests that find its leaves unpalatable. But species like the gulmohar, well adapted to the porous sandy or loamy soils of Madagascar, do not do so well in Indian cities. It is widely planted across many Indian cities for obvious reasons—it is a beautiful tree with an arresting canopy profile and captivating scarlet blossoms that light up the horizon. But its buttress roots do not penetrate deep into the ground, especially in the hardened city roadside soil where it is often planted. In times of rain and wind, the gulmohar is very vulnerable and falls easily, damaging homes and often posing a danger to lives as well.
Other traits do not affect the ecological survival of the tree, but they do impact its selection by the people who plant it. In Delhi, as Pradip Kishen describes, British planners moved away from traditional Indian favourites like the banyan and mango because their canopies were too large and seemed (to them) to be visually overwhelming. Instead, they chose trees like the neem, jamun and tamarind with canopies that were large, but not too large. In Bengaluru, German and British horticulturalists selected trees from across the world with overlapping flowering seasons, so that at all times of the year, some flowers would definitely be in bloom, keeping the city well adorned.
We are largely oblivious to the traits of trees today. But these are incredibly important, detailed adaptations, perfected by each species over time periods ranging from thousands to millions of years. Keeping tabs on the traits of the trees you love can be fun, involving observations of fruiting, flowering and pollination, and patient dissections of everything from flowers to fruits and leaves to bark. As long as you don’t dig up the roots, or irretrievably damage the tree, it’s all fine!
EIGHTEEN
PEEPUL:
THE PEOPLE’S
TREE
It is difficult to imagine Indian cities without the peepul. We tend to associate the tree with temples. But, in reality, one of the most common places where the peepul can be seen is along the roadsides. Sometimes, you can even find a peepul right in the middle of a road, a bright green spot in the midst of swirling traffic. We fail to notice these trees as we carry on with our daily tasks. But look out across your cities, from Kolkata to Mumbai to Delhi, and keep your eyes on the buildings, especially in the older parts. You will see peepul trees, small and large, growing from the crevices of walls and roofs of many old homes. Birds eat the fruits of the peepul and drop the seeds as they fly overhead. Some of these seeds find their way into crevices of walls and roofs, from which we can see the strange sight of brown roots curling around concrete, and shiny green leaves emerging as the young saplings grow. Some trees even grow large, embedding their roots into the wall.
The peepul is one of the easiest trees to recognize. Its leaves are distinctive, shiny, heart-shaped, with wavy edges and a pointed tip. The leaves seem to be in constant motion, fluttering on their long stalks at the slightest sign of a breeze. The sound is like the pattering of raindrops, as the wavy leaves brush against each other. The same tree in the dry season, stripped bare of all its leaves, looks equally majestic. The pale grey bark is framed by branches that reach out towards the sky as it rests, waiting to acquire a fresh set of leaves. The fruit (figs) of the peepul, reddish-purple when they ripen, are a favourite with the birds.
A little known aspect is the
ruthless nature of this tree. Like its close cousin, the banyan, the peepul also acts as a strangler fig. Peepul seeds, dropped on to another tree, can grow over the host tree, using it for anchorage and support. As the tree grows, it eventually surrounds and strangles the host. Unlike a parasite, the peepul is what is called an epiphyte—it does not draw sap from the host plant, but makes its own food, taking in nourishment from the sun, air and rain.
The peepul is one of the oldest trees to be recorded in India, depicted in seals and pottery of the Indus Valley civilization. The Rig Veda (from around 3700 BC) talks about the sacred nature of the peepul. Surapala, in the Vrikshayurveda, says that, ‘He who plants even a single asvattha (peepul), wherever it may be, as per the prescribed mode, goes to the abode of Hari.’
In many villages and cities, we find peepul trees on elevated platforms (in Karnataka, these are very popular and are called ashwathkattes). On these platforms, peepul and neem are married to each other in rituals (the peepul is believed to be the male and the neem the female). Snake stones anointed with haldi and kumkum are found on the platform. These kattes are cared for by locals and prayers are offered at these shrines. The peepul is sacred to Hindus as a symbol of fertility. The peepul tree in Bodh Gaya, under which Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment, is an important pilgrimage location for Buddhists.
In addition to the sacred, mundane daily activities also take place under the peepul tree. Flower and fruit sellers sit under the shade in search of shelter, and a range of other items from clothes to helmets are sold under the tree. It is considered dangerous to lie or cheat while sitting under the peepul tree. Thus, many people prefer to plant the peepul in market spaces, both for the shade it provides and to keep traders from cheating. Kattes are also locations where people gather to play a game of cards or chess, chat about local gossip and national politics, or take a nap under the tree’s welcoming shade on a hot afternoon.
Cities and Canopies Page 13