Kas / Kaas near Satara

snonymous

I am no expert but I have also observed as follows:

In 2008 I saw a very profuse mass blooming of karvies in many places in Matheran, at SGNP, and in forests near Tansa - both types, the furry [pleocaulus sp] and smooth leaved [strobilanthes callosa].

In 2007, I saw a mass blooming in Matheran on one side of Panorama Point. I also saw sporadic blooming of a few scattered shrubs near Tansa.

This year - 2009, I saw sporadic blooming near Tansa, at SGNP and again near Panorama Pt at Matheran.

The good news is that there are vast areas of Matheran which are covered in Karvies at various stages of their growth cycle, so one can reasonably expect them to mass bloom in different stages, every year. I have also seen mass blooming and sporadic blooming of various high altitude strobilanthes [kurinji] species in the Nilgiris from 2007 to 2009.

Im sure there must be plenty more karvy / kurinji shrubs in other forests of the Western Ghats which are also at different stages of their cycle.

I read in an old British era botany book that there is no conclusive data to show that the shrubs bloom only once every 8 years. If I can find it I will scan the text and post it here.

There are several species of strobilanthes / pleocaulus / nilgirianthus that bloom in cycles from 1 to 12 years, depending also on climatic conditions. As I said, Im certainly no expert, but I too am not convinced about the 8 - 12 year theory.

Ganesh, regarding Raireshwar and other such places, is Kas the only place with a motorable road, the other places are accessible only by treks?

I hope I can make it to Kas next year.

Some more gorgeous Kas plateau photos from the internet by CJSamson:
http://samsoncj.blogspot.com/2009/10/kaas-plateau.html

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ks_bluechip

snonymous: Truly amazing pictures in the above link! Thanks for sharing it here. Like you I am very keen to go to Kaas next year. Lets hope it works out for 2010
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ganeshs_16

Whoa! That sure is an expert write up. Thanks for shedding light on this !

On other such places, a number of forts to the south and south east of Pune have brilliant flowers post monsoon. Of these, i think Purandar fort is motorable to some extent. There is kuchcha road till the Purandareshar temple, although i wouldn't advice driving on small cars. The road from Narayanpur has on both sides yellow flower fields and of course pink balsams everywhere (Here, I have seen balsams cultivated in fields and i have seen them on sale in Pune).

Around Bhor, one can drive till small villages around like Korle, Bazarwadi, etc (from where the trekking trails start) and surely spot bright colors all along the way. I haven't been around Wai, Mahabaleshwar region much, but hear that the flowers there are equally brilliant. The Mulshi- Lonavala region, although scenic, doesn't sport such clogging blooms.

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niknik

Adding to what snonymous has said, each karvy plant blooms once every 8 years but then all karvy plants dont follow the same cycle. So every year you see a new set of plants blooming.

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darth_lucifer

Had been to Kaas this sunday from mumbai...dissapointed that we were too late for the flowers


http://s174.photobucket.com/albums/w...ara/?start=all