Freshwater Mangrove - Barringtonia acutangula

Common Name :	Freshwater Mangrove.
Botanical Name :	Barringtonia acutangula
Family :	Lecythidaceae
Bengali Name :	Hijol.
Photo Taken :	Bangladesh

Freshwater Mangrove is an evergreen flowering plant. Its profoundly available at the Southern Part of the Asia. The scientific name of the tree is Barringtonia acutangula. The name Hijal is a local name from our country Bangladesh. But in English this is known as Freshwater Mangrove, Indian Silk Oak, etc. It belongs to the plant family Lecythidaceae.

A Moth is flying around the Freshwater Mangrove flower.

Freshwater Mangrove (Barringtonia acutangula) is a medium sized evergreen tree plant that brings the flower during the rainy season (or around). The tree can grow up to 5-8 meter in height. The leafs are obovate shaped (narrower at the base), and the bark is dark. This plant grows well beside the water, muddy area, and can survive under water as well.

Freshwater Mangrove (Barringtonia acutangula) flowers are pink in color and extremely beautiful. Flowers mainly bloom during the night and its very hard to see this flower on tree if you are too late at the morning. I have taken the flowers at the early morning when only few were left. But this tree uses to produce a single stick blossom from the pinnacle of the branch. The blossom comprises of 50 to 100 small immature green flower bud initially. But later on those convert into pink or light pink colored flower.





Being an evergreen tree as well as having noticeable size of the leaf from the tree, it uses to provide a body cooling shed under it. The cool breeze under the shade is really conducive for the pedestrians. In Bengali Literature, lot of writer and poet mentioned about this tree inside their work.





Photos of Freshwater Mangrove (Barringtonia acutangula) were taken from several places of Bangladesh (i.e. Savar, Narayanganj, and Dhaka). I have recently updated the article with the photos from Botanical Garden, Dhaka. In Bangladesh its flower is known as Hijol (হিজল ফুল).





This article has written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog http://icflora.blogspot.com/