KOCHI: The changing weather patterns are not just affecting animals, birds and humans. Trees are equally suffering. Unlike in the past when the kanikonna trees used to be laden with the golden yellow flowers, they have started flowering less with each passing year. This year, another vagary of weather has hit them. The summer rain has destroyed the few kanikonna blooms that had blossomed.
“The situation is so bad that it might be hard to find any kanikkonna this Vishy,” said Maya Nair, a Kakkanad resident who celebrates the festival fervently. She pointed out that of late, the trees have been flowering early, and not close to Vishu. “The scarcity will lead to an increase in the price of the flowers, a must-have for vishukkani,” she added.
According to Jacob Varghese, a botanist and former lecturer with the Bharat Matha College, Thrikkakara, poor flowering patterns of the kanikonna trees might be due to the decreasing severity of summers. “Usually, a tree flowers and bears fruit as a means of survival. However, if conditions are conducive and don’t threaten its existence, it becomes less concerned about reproduction,” he said.
He added that kanikonna flowers abundantly when there is a marked drop in the underground water table. “They shed their leaves to conserve water and finally, as a means of survival, bear flowers,” he said. But this time around, the summer heat did not drastically lower the groundwater levels, Jacob pointed out.
“This is evident from the fact that the trees have not shed their leaves. So they are bound to have fewer flowers,” he said.