Perched, Parched

Vijay Dhasmana (Express Photo/Praveen Khanna)

The walk starts at A-block, outside the NBCC office, which is incidentally handling the Netaji Nagar redevelopment project. Standing opposite the building, looking it in the eye, is the mighty Gamhar, numbered 965. Most old trees in the area are numbered by the Central Public Works Department, while the new ones have been numbered by the forest department, says Dwivedi. “Part of this colony has been broken down, but there’s still a lot to appreciate. The old growth tells how this colony must have come up in the ’50s, where trees took over, becoming part of the landscape, integrating into the built area, giving character to the colony,” says Dhasmana, adding, “a lot would have been planted by the government, while people must have planted the fruit trees for themselves — jamun, amla, imli, guava and mango”.

Meanwhile, sounds of light rain, birds chirping and aeroplanes in flight drown Dhasmana’s soft voice, who quips, the walk is “to meet the trees, without a vested interest”.

The jungle tree, Gamhar (Gmelina arborea), he says, is at least 40 years old. “Found in the Shivaliks, Vindhyas and southern Aravalli, it is a fast-growing species with very hard wood — a rare combination.” An avenue of this tree lines the road from SDA Market towards Aurobindo Market. “The stretch marks indicate its fast growth, much like in humans. It also shrinks as quickly as it grows (trees shrink during drought),” he say

The walk starts at A-block, outside the NBCC office, which is incidentally handling the Netaji Nagar redevelopment project (Express Photo./Praveen Khanna)

The coloniser Semal, with a thorny bark and beautiful buttress, grows up to 20 ft, and is frequented by hornbills, barbets and parrots. Its thorns, a participant informs, are used by teenagers in Odisha for curing acne. Semal grows on flat grounds, and can be seen on either side of the INA bridge towards SDA Market, and between Saket and Qutab Minar, says Dwivedi. “There’s one opposite the Oberoi hotel, and on the bridge from Sunder Nursery towards Kaka Nagar,” adds Dhasmana, before speeding towards the wild mango tree which is found in the Aravali and all over peninsular India. In southern Indian forest, the wild mango fruit (and the seed casing) is smaller than the common ones, and is “fibrous, so as to protect the seed that has to go through the gut of larger animals, come out and germinate”.

The neighbouring Parijat/ Harsingar/ Shiuli begs for attention, though its iconic orange-stemmed white flowers are absent. Found in central Indian jungles, Shivaliks, Himalayan foothills -all over peninsular India its leaves grow in opposite directions and are sandpapery in texture. He, then, directs the collective gaze down to the Aak, next to it, quizzing the onlookers. The host plant for plain tiger, striped tiger and cabbage butterflies, can be found along the Jaisalmer-Barmer border road. The leaves of the common variety (Calotropis procera), with bluish-purple flowers, are offered to Lord Shiva, the “wild variety (Calotropis gigantea) have elongated leaves and white flowers”.

Pointing at the drooping broad-leaved Chamrod, found in Delhi Cantt station Platform No. 2 and Defence Colony market, with “a knotty trunk, white flowers and orange berries”, Dhasmana says, “the large leaves are a strategy of a young forest plant to increase its surface area to get more sunlight, hence food. As it grows, it firms up”. Around the corner, Amaltas beckons, “flowering over the long March-October period”.

Inside the open garage of a deserted house, with overgrowing foliage and the sign “Trespassers will be prosecuted”, stands a Neem tree. “A native plant, which is a declared invasive in Australia and Florida, Neem can’t survive in moisture/ frost but has naturalised so well,” says Dhasmana, adding “Akbar Road is lined with it. It’s been into cultivation for so long, the actual place of origin isn’t known.” It is said to have originated in the drier parts of the Northeast, Myanmar and China.”

A few steps lead to a bed of evolvulus at the base of Bakain (Persian lilac), and Dhasmana speaks of its expensive wood and that it is found in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The Baheda, to its right, whose powdered fruit is used in the Ayurvedic medicine triphala, is loved by wild squirrels, civets and bears, and “the giant tree takes two-three years to become nicely wooded”.

Culminating the walk, Dhasmana says, not only are “the life forms rendered hungry and homeless, but the importance of a full-grown tree in an urban space becomes fivefold, especially in the heavily polluted Delhi”. He adds, “Trees cut from a certain part of the city and planted 50 km away isn’t compensatory, what’s destroyed cannot be compensated. Fifty-year-old trees cannot be replaced even if you plant 100 saplings.”

The next walk, on 4 August, will be conducted by ecologist Jayati Talapatra of Dilli Meri Jaan group, entry free. To register, visit Delhi Trees SOS on Facebook