| Common Name : | Flame of the Forest, Palash, etc. |
| Botanical Name : | Butea monosperma |
| Family : | Fabaceae |
| Bangla Name : | Polash Ful (পলাশ ফুল), Kingshuk ful (কিংশুক ফুল). |
| Photo Taken : | Bangladesh. |
In Bengali literature, many famous poets have depicted many things with the Polash in their work. Lot of poems, songs are available in Bengali which are related to this Polash. English name of the flower is 'Flame of the Forest' because of the fire like red colored flowers. From far it looks like a piece of fire on the tree. Botanical name of this Polash is Butea monosperma. It pertains to the plant family Fabaceae. This plant is native to India and it's proximity regions including our Bangladesh.
Polash (Butea monosperma) is a slow growing plant that can grow up to 40 feet in height. It is deciduous during dry season but produces thousands of flower that time. Color of the flower is red, bright orange, orange/red, etc. From the far sight the colorful flower resembles a piece of fire on the tree. These exotic flower doesn't have any fragrance.
Leafs are pinnate having long petiole with three leaflets. It is somewhat similar to the other bean leafs. Leaflets are 10-20 cm long. During the blooming season the leafs are very rare on the tree.
Flowers bloom in a cluster. The bract is blackish. I am not sure how many petals are in this flower. But I can easily notice the four. One is the upper petal, two from the sides of the flower. And other one is similar the beak of a parrot. That's why it is also known as Parrot tree.
In Hindu mythology it is said that the tree is a form of the god Agnidev (the God of fire). It was a punishment to him becacuse of disturbing the privacy of the Goddess Parvati and Lord Siva.
Initially the photos of this article were taken from Sunamganj during February 2012. It was a medium sized tree, and I couldn't reach near to a flower for a closeup shot. But later on, the article was updated by the photos of my Mymensingh tour of March 2013. Finally, recently (after march 2015) I have removed all the old photos and updated the article with the photos which I have taken from Curzon Hall of Dhaka University and Shohid Minar. It was the February 13, 2015.
This article has written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog http://icflora.blogspot.com/
I was a student of B.M.S. Girls' High School Chittagong. And, there was a big tree of Polash Flower in our school ground. All students were very fond of those flowers because, Polash flower can be used to blow whistle!! One has to peel off the internal string of the flower very carefully to make a proper whistle. It was really interesting to make loud sound through a very soft flower!
ReplyDeleteThat sounds interesting... you can upload the tree of your school at my facebook page( http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lonely-Traveler/128527470528727 )...
ReplyDeleteI would definitely upload if I am in Chittagong now. Leaved my most memorable city long ago!
ReplyDelete