A tree that adorns all along most of the city roads, which these days are standing fresh and cool with puffy pink flowers, is the Rain Tree (Albizia saman or Samanea saman). "Thoongumoonji Maram" as it is locally known, folds its leaves together during cloudy weather and in darkness. The tree is an ideal choice for those seeking a good shade. It stands tall growing up to 24 m in height and spreads its branches up to 30 m. These trees live long for almost 80–100 years.
The fresh attractive globose clusters of flowers with showy crimson stamens that are much longer than the petals catches everyone's eyes during all of spring and summer months. A forester friend of mine Mr. Ramasubramaniam, tells me that the tree fixes the atmospheric nitrogen in its root nodules and it helps to enrich the soil. He added an interesting note that the tree is commonly referred to in Africa as the monkey-pod tree because the black curved pods of the tree are sweet pulp and attracts large number of monkeys towards it. This tree is native to the America—from south Mexico to Peru and Brazil.
Today, the Indian Forest Department encourages the growth of this tree along streets, roads, in parks and as a windbreak between plantation crops like tea, coffee, etc. It has also long been grown for nitrogen enrichment of soils in pastures and as a shade-tree with its attractive flowers in parks. It is also a home for many wild animals—various reptiles, birds, and small mammals which use the tree branches and cavities for nesting and dens. The Rain tree is a primary food source for the lac insect (Laccifer lacca), the source of shellac.
In the Isles of the West Indies, where the World cup is being hosted, the fruit pulp is used to make a beverage similar to tamarindo (made from tamarind pulp) and the seeds are chewed as medicine for sore throat.
