The Nagalingam:From South America, adopted in India

“What a strange-looking flower. It appears to be growing directly from the trunk of this huge tree”, said Rajiv.

- Ahana Lakshmi

“What a lovely fragrance”, said Divya. They were standing in the driveway of an apartment block in Chennai where their friends had moved in.

“That’s the Nagalingam tree. Actually, this was the site of my great-grandfather’s house”, said Kriti. “A few years ago, the old house made way for an apartment block but my grandparents ensured that the old tree was not cut”.

Couroupita guianensis is the botanical name, given to the Nagalingam tree by the French botanist, Jean-Baptiste Fusee-Aublet when he found it in 1755 in French Guiana on the north Atlantic coast of South America. It belongs to the family Lecythidaceae and is related to the Brazil nut tree. It seems to have been part of the Indian culture for over three thousand years. In fact, it grows all over south east Asia, where the soil and climate are congenial and hence it has been able to spread widely. They say that the spread of this tree, apart from fossil evidence, indicates the existence of trans-continental trade thousands of years ago.