Of Witches and Fragrant Flowers

There are only two or three days left to admire the pale green flowers of the Alstonia Scholaris trees that have started blooming. The early bloomers have already begun to wither. The late bloomers are scenting the air with their intoxicating fragrance. Their flowers bloom in clusters of pale or yellow green. Their fragrance wafts by at dawn and dusk. If you have smelt a fragrance invading your home or your nostrils at these times, a fragrance that makes you faint with unexplained longings and desires, this, the Alstonia Scholaris is wholly responsible.

The first part of the name derives from the name of Professor C. Alston, a botanist of Edinburgh. And the second part, Scholaris is founded on the fact that it is used to make writing boards and blackboards. That is one explanation. Another is that students used to sit beneath these trees during study time, in the famous Vishwa Bharati University, and outgoing students, were apparently given saptaparni leaves as a token of appreciation, and to remind them to be simple, and stay connected with nature.

It is called the Pala tree, or Ezhilam Pala, in Malayalam, the Devil Tree, or Saptaparni in other languages. In both languages, it speaks of a cluster of seven leaves, from a central node. Back in Kerala, we have stories where beautiful, seductive witches would stand beneath the Pala tree when it was flowering, and entrap men, usually the more good-looking ones, and either drink their blood or cause them to disappear, depending on which witch stories you subscribed to.

I don’t know about other witches: but this particular witch really does feel supernatural when she passes beneath or in the vicinity of the tree. But don’t tell anyone I said that.

Go out to smell the flowers. They might last for the next couple of days.

And while you are there, do something more, if you will.

Plant a tree today.

©️ 2021 Suma Narayan. All Rights Reserved.

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