Flame of the Forest during the off season

 

This is a picture of  "Modugu Chettu"(Butea), a small one considerably. Taken it while being on the wayside of nearby Turubaka village. With the on set of spring season, these trees burst with magnificent bright orange red flowers and that's why, keeping in view of it's dominant colorful presence, called as flame of the forest. This tree is commonly seen across many places of our area. Modugu chettu is the common Telugu name. Before the plastic plates introduced, these leaves were used as portable green plates to take any kind of small quantity of food whatever. Locals were using it for multiple purposes.

Nowadays, only the cattle are eating the leaves. Must be sumptuous for them since the leaves are soft, smooth and leathery. However, rainy season brought tender green shine to the leaves. We can't see any bright green leaves during the spring season. There were only orange red flowers all over. The tree resembles as if it's of only with red flowers sans the leaves. A dramatic change or transformation. Modugu leaves have had  age old references in Sukla Yajurveda to have used in the times of rituals, especially to pour ghee in fire related rituals.

These trees generally now used for timber, resin and medicinal value. We can also see the trees in the parts of tropical and sub-tropical parts of the Indian sub-continent and southeast Asia. Grow almost 49 ft tall. Leaves are pinnate, with 8-13 cm. Mostly cleared off for agricultural purpose. Very few are nowadays to be seen. Once, the trees were aplenty on both sides of road. The scenario has been changed with times, at least there were some of them to witness.