Tree Tale | Peacock Flower | English
Channel: Arvind Gupta
Date: 2015-09-23

Here you can see a Purple Sunbird collecting the nectar of the Peacock Flowers with its long and curved beak. Caesalpinia pulcherrima is a species of flowering plants belonging to the PEA family. They are natives of South America and the West Indies. The flowers are commonly called the Peacock Flowers, the Red Bird of Paradise or Poinciana.
The shrub usually grows to a height of 3-meters. The leaves are bi-pinnate and resemble the leaves of the Gulmohar tree. The flowers are borne in racemes. Each flower has five yellow, orange, red or magenta petals. The fruit is a pot 6-12 cm long. The green pod turns brown with age.
The Caesalpinia pulcherrima is widely grown as an ornamental plant. It is widely grown in domestic and public gardens. The plant tolerates pruning and therefore it is often planted as a hedge. The plant attracts a lot of bees and sunbirds. Its Hindi name is KRISHNACHUDA and the Marathi name is SHANKASUR.
Take piece of curved pod make a hole and place a pin in it. On blowing the curved pod spins like a fan.

This work is supported by IUCAA(www.iucaa.ernet.in) and TATA Trust (www.tata.com/aboutus/sub_index/Tata-trusts)

Credits:,Ashok Rupner, Manish Jain, Pradnya Pujari, Shivaji Mane, Jyoti Hiremath, Arvind Gupta, Vidula Mhaiskar TATA Trust: Education is one of the key focus areas for Tata Trusts, aiming towards enabling access of quality education to the underprivileged population in India. To facilitate quality in teaching and learning of Science education through workshops, capacity building and resource creation, Tata Trusts have been supporting Muktangan Vigyan Shodhika (MVS), IUCAA's Children’s Science Centre, since inception. To know more about other initiatives of Tata Trusts, please visit www.tatatrusts.org