Golden Champak

Michelia champaca

Bengali & Hindi: Champa (in Bengali sometimes Swarna is added before Champa)

A tall slender evergreen tree with leaf shape somewhat like mango (lighter in color) that bears beautiful flowers with exquisite fragrance from April till rains. In its natural evergreen hilly home this grows over 100 feet but not more that 40 feet in Kolkata

Bark: Ashy grey shallowly fissured, with prominent lenticles

Leaf: Shape/size wise like mango leaf but not dark like mango leaf

Flower: Large (2’’ across), mostly singly in leaf axils petals and sepals similar around 15 in number, color usually dull yellow (but can vary from ivory white to deep yellow)

Fruit: Grapelike clusters of capsules that turn brown when mature

Season: Never leafless, but fresh leaves appear in March, flowering start from April and continue till end of rain in flushes. Fruits take almost a year to mature.

Range/habitat: Elevated moist forests in NE India & Wester Ghats, cultivated elsewhere since time immemorial.

Trivia and notes: This tree and the flower are considered as sacred in both Hindu & Buddhist mythology

Where to find: There are quite a few specimens in Rabindra Sarobar compound but almost none of them are mature trees. The pictures here are from Durga Exhibition Museum complex (Ma phire elo). Here there is on sub adult tree some 40’ towards right from the entrance at the border.

Outside the Rabindra sarobar, there is one mature tree just behind the Buddha Temple.