[ad_1]
Underneath the Lajpat Nagar flyover in South Delhi are a group of newly planted palm trees that are far away from what would have been their natural home – California in the United States. The species, Washingtonia filifera, with fan-shaped leaves and a stout trunk, and commonly called the ‘California fan palm’, is the newest addition to the city’s greenscape.
Among the species of palms that the Delhi Public Works Department (PWD) is planting as part of its streetscaping project, the trees can be spotted along the central verge of Narwana Road in Patparganj and across the road from the Sarai Kale Khan bus stand, where they share space with date palm trees. An official associated with the project said the trees were planted about a year ago.
The palm trees under the flyover will soon be joined by the Chinese fan palm or Livistona chinensis, a small tree that is native to subtropical parts of China and Japan. On Lodhi Road, the Chinese fan palm and foxtail palm (native to Australia) are among the species that are being planted. One side of the pavement on Nelson Mandela Marg is now lined with a row of date palms or the khajur tree.
What explains this new burst of palms on Delhi’s landscape?
Frond of the problem
Around 70 palm trees have been planted so far on Narwana Road, while there are 122 date palms on Nelson Mandela Road. According to PWD officials, while some of these trees were purchased from nurseries in the city, others came from states such as Andhra Pradesh.
While the presence of the palm trees has divided ecologists and tree experts, the PWD says they serve the streetscaping purpose for which they were bought.
“Palm trees serve a purely ornamental purpose and are only for beautification. These are usually planted along with other trees that have more of a role to play — like those that give shade. These palms (California and date) survive in Delhi, but they need proper maintenance. Some casualties are only natural,” said a PWD official. Recently, at least two of the 30-odd trees at Sarai Kale Khan were found uprooted.
Experts, however, say the palms don’t serve much of an ecological purpose in Delhi. “The purpose of urban plantations is that they should have an ecological function and serve as a filter for air pollutants. The Washingtonia palm neither adds to the beauty of the landscape nor does it provide an effective filter for air pollutants. Also, as trees planted along avenues, these trees don’t provide any shade since they don’t have much of a canopy. There are better species with larger canopies and more leafy areas. The total leaf area in palm trees is a lot less than a tree species with a large number of leaves that can filter pollutants,” said ecologist C R Babu, adding that this is a species that might be better placed in parks or malls, but not along roads.
Faiyaz Khudsar, scientist in-charge of Biodiversity Parks Programme at the Centre for Environment Management of Degraded Ecosystems, said, “All plants have their role. But in a place like Delhi, where you need a bigger canopy to fight particulate matter and other emissions, you instead bring in something with small canopies, and that too a non-native one.”
He pointed out that Delhi already has an existing issue with the vilayati kikar or the Prosopis juliflora, a non-native, invasive species planted in Delhi by the British. The vilayati kikar, a tree native to Mexico, has taken over much of Delhi’s Ridge, suppressing the growth of other, native plants.
Both Babu and Khudsar said planting tall palms on the central verge is a bad idea. “We need shrubs on the verge that curtail the light from vehicles. Tall trees on the central verge can also be a problem when there are strong winds,” Khudsar said.
A borrowed idea
The PWD’s idea of planting ornamental palm trees is not particularly new considering that many varieties are present at the site of some of Delhi’s historical monuments. “The trees that you see around the monuments are mostly the Cuban royal palm. The royal palm was brought in by the British because they are standardised… you get a formal effect with these palms; they look like a row of cement columns. That’s why they were used,” said Pradip Krishen, naturalist and author of Trees of Delhi.
“Washingtonia, which is from a fairly dry part of California, is a very tall palm with a huge skirt of dead leaves that it drops at the base of where its leaves are. It doesn’t make sense to plant them,” he added.
Some of the residential complexes and malls also boast of palm trees. Recently, the fronds were at the centre of a public face-off in the National Capital Region (NCR) when politician Shrikant Tyagi got into an altercation with a fellow resident of an upscale residential complex in Noida over planting of palm trees in the common area.
The experts said planting palm trees along central avenues is a trend borrowed from countries in the Middle East.
“Over the last 10 to 15 years, landscape architects have carried out a lot of landscaping in the Middle East, where they have evolved a certain kind of language. In the desert, they want green… evergreen trees. Palms have now become synonymous with dry, desert landscapes in the Middle East. For some reason, though, we have such richness of tree species, our landscape architects in India are copying the Middle East trend,” said Krishen.
Some of Delhi’s palm trees
Common name Scientific name Native to California fan palm Washingtonia filifera Californi
Chinese fan palm Livistona chinensis Parts of China, Japan
Wild date palm/khajur Phoenix sylvestris India, Sri Lanka
Royal Palm Roystonea regia Parts of Cuba
[ad_2]
Source link