Surviving the Pandemic, One Tree at a Time

About a year ago, in March 2020 the world shut down. The dreaded COVID-19 virus that set off a pandemic across globe forced us to stay indoors in order to stay safe. In this difficult year, one thing that saw me, and many others, through is our relationship with the environment.

When the lockdown hit, I was spending a weekend in a village called Mashem in south Goa. The stringent rules that banned all inter-state travel forced us to stay put. But I wasn’t complaining. It is a place known for the bounties of nature — hills, forests, backwaters, mangroves, and a sea that brims with marine life. I spent 40 days here away from the noise of the pandemic. For me, it became necessary to engage myself physically, mentally, and emotionally with the natural world around me in order to deal with the uncertainties of life.

I took refuge in the trees.

Dr Usha Desai, an 81-year-old tree-expert who conducts tree walks in Goa, became my unofficial guide. “Once you know a tree, how its pollination takes place, how seeds are dispersed, its uses — once you know a tree in totality, you are bound to fall in love with it and preserve it,” she said. She also encouraged me to start a monthly blog to document my experience. Here are some of the trees that I was fascinated by, which helped me get through the pandemic.

Red Silk Cotton Tree (Bombax ceiba)

In March 2020, I first wrote about the red silk cotton tree as it flowers abundantly during this month. The tree is known for its big red flowers, which are a favourite among bees and birds. It is an ideal tree for birdwatchers as it attracts a number of birds that come to feed on the nectar. One can see drongos, mynas, bulbuls, sunbirds, parakeets, to name a few.

Mango Tree (Mangifera indica)

Goans have a special bond with the mango tree and its fruit. Goa’s celebrated poet, Bakibab Borkar, said a mango is “like a drop of honey/soft as a bride’s lips/our pride, our wealth/is the Goan mango”. There are more than 500 varieties of mangoes found all over the world. In Goa, once upon a time over a 100 varieties grew. But today, only about 40 are commonly found since others aren’t as popular in the markets and aren’t cultivated as widely. The most loved variety in Goa is Mancurad. There are also other local varieties commonly known as ‘ghota’ or ‘ghonttam.’ The mango tree is favoured by caterpillars of the common baron butterfly (Euthalia aconthea). These caterpillars are green in colour, with feathery bristles and a faint yellow-coloured spine. Once the caterpillar’s yellow spine aligns with the leaf’s midrib, it is impossible to tell the green caterpillar apart from the leaf.

Indian Prickly Ash (Zanthoxylum rhetsa)

In Goa, the prickly ash tree is also known as triphala or teflam. The dried husk of its bead-like fruit is used as a spice in traditional Goan cuisine. It has a peculiar pungent taste and can even make your mouth numb for some time after consuming it. Very often confused with the Sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum bungeanum), a spice widely used in Chinese cuisine, this spice also belongs to the same Zanthoxylum family. This backyard forest tree attracts many bees, especially honeybees, as it is a dioecious species. Male and female flowers of this species grow on separate trees. Here, the role of bees becomes very important as bees transport pollen while collecting nectar. Without bees there will be no fruits.

The tree has a grey-coloured bark with cone-shaped thorns. The thorny branch of this tree was used as a kitchen grater. This tree also has medicinal qualities. In the book, Some Important Medicinal Plants of Goa published by State Medicinal Plants Board Goa, it is mentioned that extracts from fruit peels (husks), seeds, bark, roots, and oil are used to treat cholera. It is also commonly known as the toothache tree, as the fruits are used to cure toothache.

Scholar's or Devil's Tree (Astonia scholaris)

The scholar’s tree has seven-leaves clubbed together and is known for its heady scented flowers — an indicator of the arrival of winter in Goa. It is a favourite of many, including poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. He believed that according to ancient wisdom, knowledge is received from seven directions, just like the seven leaves of this tree that point in seven directions. Its bark is also used to makes slates. No wonder it is commonly known as the ‘scholar’s tree’. But why the name devil’s tree? Desai while quoting from Field Guide to the Common Trees of India by PV Bole and Vaghani Yogini suggests that because of the presence of bitter alkaloids in all parts of the tree it is shunned by cattle. Some even say that it could be because of the intoxicating smell of flowers.