Beautiful flowers of amazing ‘cannonball tree’

Nature is full of surprises. You just need to look around yourself for the wonders it has created. Last week, when I was shooting the lotus flowers at a pond in Navi Mumbai, one of the curious onlooker took to me this wonderful tree popularly called as ‘Cannonball tree’ or ‘Nag Chafa’ in Marathi. I could not shoot the flowers that day as it was fading but decided to come next day.

Next day, I visited the tree to witness a sweet and strong scent oozing out of those lovely flowers. Sharing here with the pictorial journey of this wonderful tree…

These trees are rare to find but the usual locations are near Shiva temples in India. Flowers bloom on the small extrusions coming out on the main trunk

This cannonball shaped fruit of the tree is the real weapon. When ripe, this fruit falls on the earth with a loud bang thereby dispersing the seeds for its propagation… The falling fruit could also pose threat to the people standing below…

Flowers mostly grow above a few feet height on the main truck though a extruded twig

Some times the flowers grown in bunches. Have a very strong sweetish scent and very bright colored petals for attracting the bees and other insects for cross pollination

Speechless to describe the mother natures creation…

My curiosity drove me to find more and more about this tree. Thanks to google, it has medicinal properties as well

The curved stamen gives it a look of snake hence the marathi name ‘Nag Chafa’ meaning flower resembling a snake.

Don’t neglect the wonders of nature if ever you get an opportunity to be close with it… This shot taken from my 40mm prime lens

While you enjoy beauty of these flowers, be aware of the falling fruits which could lead to serious injuries as they weigh several kilos in weight and have hard cover outside..

These fragrant flowers open up early in the morning generally after 7am but do not last long and the petals keep on falling through out day.

Scientific name ‘Couroupita Guianensis’. Belongs to the Brazi Nuts family. More info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couroupita_guianensis