Dual delight intrigues botanists

Many miss this natural wonder while zooming past on the Utnoor-Asifabad road in Adilabad, but those who do spot the colourful tree, stop to marvel at its beauty. A majestic mahua or ippa tree, located about 500 metres from Heerapur village in Utnoor mandal, towards Jainoor, is a visual delight and scientific curiosity — half the tree has red-brown leaves while the other half has green leaves.

The tree retains this dual foliage from the end of March for about a month, soon after it sheds its flowers.

Adilabad has an estimated five lakh

mahua trees, mostly in the tribal belt. The

mahua flowers have medicinal value and form a major non-timber forest produce for the forest dwelling Gond and Kolam tribal communities. The tree bears two differently coloured leaves at the same time apparently because it has a dual leaf development stage. “This could be because of two different seeds joining at the time of germination but retaining individual characteristics of growth on maturity,” said a forest department official of the rare phenomenon. The tree is about 40 years old, according to villagers. “It was a young tree when I was a child,” recalled Atram Shankar, a 40-year-old Gond farmer from Hasnapur village, about 2 km from the bi-coloured beauty. The Forest department has taken note of the tree with the rare foliage and Forest Range Officer of Utnoor, P. Ramesh Rao and others have visited the place to document the occurrence.

Dual delight intrigues botanists

The mahua or ippa tree can be seen on the Utnoor-Asifabad road in Adilabad