Dhaira ful (ধাইরা ফুল) - Dendrophthoe falcata

Bengali Name :	Dhaira ful (ধাইরা ফুল), Bandha (বান্ধা), Pharulla (ফারুল্লা), etc.
Common Name :	Honey Suckled Mistletoe.
Botanical Name :	Dendrophthoe falcata
Family :	Loranthaceae

ধাইরা একটা পরগাছা উদ্ভিদ যা অন্য একটি গাছের উপরে জন্মায় আর বাড়তে থাকে... সাধারণত পুরানো আম গাছে বেশি দেখা যায় জন্মাতে...লাল কমলা রঙের ফুলগুলো থেকে যখন ছোট ছোট ফল হয় তখন তা একটু মিষ্টি লাগে খেতে... পাখিদের পাশাপাশি ছোট বাচ্চাদেরও অনেক পছন্দের এটি... ছোট বেলায় গাছের নিচ থেকে পরে থাকা ধাইরা ফল কুড়িয়ে খেয়েছি অনেক... আজকে সেই ফুল নিয়ে লেখা...

I am going to write about a different plant today. It doesn't grow in soil, or in water, rather it grows upon another plant. Which means its a parasite plant and requires a host tree for further growing. It is locally known as Dhaira Ful (ধাইরা ফুল) in Bangladesh along with few other vernacular names Bandha (বান্ধা), Pharulla (ফারুল্লা), etc. It has a nice common name in English which is Honey Suckled Mistletoe. This parasite plant belongs to the family Loranthaceae and botanical name is Dendrophthoe falcata.

Despite of being a parasite plant, this plant is well healthy and oppositely arranged leafs are too much broad, thick, fleshy, smooth and having variable shapes. Dhaira (ধাইরা) plant is a much branched bushy shrub plant. It mainly grows over a well grown old mango trees (but grows over few other old trees as well).

Flowers of Honey Suckle Mistletoe are red, orange in color. Its a slim tubular (basically the corolla) flower blooms as a cluster during the winter season in our country Bangladesh. Flower converts into a small fleshy fruit which is a source of food for specific kind of birds. The seeds use to stuck around the beak of the birds and disperse when they rub their beak on the branch of another plant.

Photos of this article were taken from Dhaka during October 2014. In this article the Host plant was a Megohoni (মেহগনি) tree.


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



ফুলের জন্য ভালবাসা, আমি বুনো ফুল...