As if to mark the Vesak season, a sal tree bearing pure white flowers and planted more than three decades ago by a royal visitor to the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens has produced fruit. The tree – shoera robusta ( dipterocarpaceae) – was planted on February 29, 1980, by the late Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev of Nepal.
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| A rare bloom: The Sal tree at the Botanical gardens |
Botanical Gardens director general Dr. Cyril Wijesundera says this sal tree is a native of the Indian subcontinent. The sal from Nepal differs from the sal, or cannonball tree, found in Sri Lanka. Dr. Wijesundera says the cannonball tree – couropita guianensis – is a native of South America.
Some years ago, sal seeds from Nepal were brought to Sri Lanka with the help of the present Speaker of Parliament, Chamal Rajapaksa. The seeds of the Nepal sal were germinated in the Peradeniya Gardens and more than 900 sal plants have been presented as gifts to temples around the country.
According to Buddhist tradition, Queen Maya grasped a branch of a sal or asoka tree when she gave birth to Prince Siddhartha, later Gautama Buddha, in a garden in Lumbini, in south Nepal. |
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