With its vibrant natural, cultural and architectural heritage, Pune is an explorer’s delight. MetroScan invites you to discover one special facet every month

Round the year, Pune’s trees and creepers put on a superb showing, each species strutting its stuff for the season, then bowing out to make way for the next great show stealer. While some dazzle with their eye-catching, brilliant colour, others delight with their heady perfume. We’re fortunate enough to have several ‘exhibitions’ and ‘demonstrations’ of Nature’s abundance all over our city. Our flowering trees, shrubs and creepers blossom in home and office gardens, botanical parks, roadsides, and in tracts of open land. Sometimes, in the hurly-burly of everyday life, we simply fail to notice these bountiful gifts.

This time of the year, besides the African Tulip tree with its flame-like flowers, and the brilliant magenta ipomea creeper, we’d like you to meet the elegant Indian Cork Tree. This tall, graceful avenue tree, quite unobtrusive all year round, suddenly bursts into flower as October approaches. From top to bottom, sometimes as much as 4-5 stories high, the tree is laden with sweet-scented little ivory flowers. The blossoms are bunched in such a way, that from a distance the entire tree looks like an elegant chandelier. If you stand under one of these trees, you’ll see the long-stemmed flowers falling gently, every few minutes, like rain drops. Gather a few, and set them in a little water – and your entire home smells fragrant and cool; they last for several days in water.

The flowers are slightly waxy, four-petalled, ivory coloured with a faint hint of pink or lilac at the centre. Just walking past one of these trees is an extremely pleasant experience, with its delicate fragrance wafting on the breeze. If you have one of these growing in your area, you’re assured of a scented evening, and night for sure. The flowers bloom in the evening and drop down gently during the day.

The tree is said to be a native of Myanmar. Its bark yields cork of an inferior variety. The botanical name of this tree is Millingtonia hortensis; it has many common names too – Gagan Jai, Akash Neem, Booch. Interestingly, the tree is also known as ‘Transformation’.

If you want to have one of your own Indian Cork Trees, simply dig up the little ‘babies’ that a large tree gives out at its base, and replant or you can buy one from a well-stocked nursery. Plant it upwind, so that in a few months you’ll enjoy the perfume wafting through your home. It is a hardy and fast growing tree with a superficial root system, so there is little fear of its roots damaging pipes, building foundations, etc. However, do keep in mind that the bark and branches are soft and brittle, can break easily in a storm, and are definitely not for kids to climb on!

- Gouri Dange