Neelakurinji
Every twelve years, the hills of Munnar in Kerala burst into a sea of blue, a rare natural spectacle for which travelers make a beeline. An endless stretch of rolling hills carpeted with tiny blue flowers welcomes the visitors. It is the time Neelakurinji, a flower with 40 odd varieties, blossoms in all its grandeur.
The long wait of twelve years is finally over. The hills will soon be bathed in a dreamy shade of blue from August 2018 to October 2018. Are you ready?
Botanists call it the blooming of ‘Strobilanthes kunthianus’, the botanical name of Neelakurinji. Neela in local parlance translates to the colour blue and Kurinji is the local name for the flower.
This stellar phenomenon can be witnessed between the months of August 2018 and October 2018 when the flower blooms in all its glory unleashing a visual extravaganza. In fact, there is no better time to visit Munnar than when the Neelakurinji blooms en masse.
The Nilgiri Tahr, the endangered mountain goat, is endemic to these hills. The majestic Tahr ambling down the hills that are swathed in Neelakurinji makes for an extremely enigmatic sight.
Flooded with travel requests, many tour operators have opened their bookings well in advance. A host of packages are now available for travellers. Moreover, tour planners and adventure clubs organize trekking in these hills when the Neelakurinji blooms. This unique lifecycle of the plant makes the hills a must-visit destination for biologists and nature enthusiasts alike.
Why the Neelakurinji flowers only once in 12 years?
Among plants, there are annuals and perennials. Annual plants complete their life cycle in one year. They grow from the seed, bloom, produce seeds and die in one growing season. Perennials live for more than two years and usually flower every year and set seeds.
Some perennials flower only once in their lifetime, set seeds and die. The next generation of the plants are established from these seeds and the cycle is repeated. Such plants are known as monocarpic, opposed to polycarpic plants that flower and set seeds many times during its lifetime. Monocarpic plants flower only after attaining maturity. The time taken by different species may differ in this respect.
Bamboos are monocarpic plants taking more than 40 years to mature and flower. Another characteristic shown by such plants is that these will flower gregariously in a single season. This happens in the case of bamboos and Kurinjis. The term ‘plietesials’ is used to refer to such plants. The time taken to mature varies in different species of Kurinjis. So different species of Kurinjis have different intervals of flowering. Neelakurinji matures in 12 years time and flowers gregariously
every 12 years.
Prof. E. Kunhikrishnan