Few Of Its Kind (ThursdayTreeLove)

 Today's tree is yet another one that I found via our WhatsApp Tree groups. 

Its a native but very few of them grow in Pune. Usually such one of kind trees grow in inaccessible places that need a lot of determination to reach.

Gathering loads of that I drove to the place, using the shared location. 

As it happened, I could see the tree from afar and its silhoutte could easily be mistaken for a Ficus. It grew on an (apparent) barren area filled with construction debris and ofcouse plastic. Some really determined tree lover had identified the species so now we all know of it and can keep track of its health.

Without much ado, here is the Shrebera swietenioides aka Mokha in marathi of the Oleaceae family. 

Lady Luck was with me, so I found parking space and scrambled over the mounds to reach the tree. 

 

As you can see its a pretty big and old tree that has survived all kinds of natural and human interventions. And it was blooming!! Yay!!!

 Here you go!

Its patchy trunk can easily be confused with the Dalbergia latifolia (which is quite commonly seen in Pune) but it has alternate leaflets whereas Mokha leaflets are opposite. There are other differences but I will leave those for another post! 

Ofcourse seeing it in flower or fruit is the best but one cannot always be that lucky!!

And the fruit.

There are only a handful of sites in Pune where Mokha is known to have its home. I was lucky to meet this grand tree. 

I am joining Parul in her ThursdayTreeLove blog hop. Do head over to see some fantastic trees from around the world. Better still, join in!