I had gone with my family on some errand to the far side of Kansat. We had passed Kansat High School and gone a little further when I suddenly noticed some flowers on a mango tree inside an orchard. They were lovely. The leaves were long and strap-like, and the flower did not look like one flower at all but many of them crowded together on a single stalk, hanging downwards.
It looked like a foxtail orchid, but I did not give it much thought. I had only ever seen foxtails in photographs, never with my own eyes, and how would an orchid as prized as the foxtail turn up in an ordinary village orchard? If I had seen it on many trees, or if there had been a house beside the orchard, I would have said that someone had planted it.
A little further on I thought I saw foxtail-like flowers on another tree. This time I could not let it pass. I had to look properly and settle whether these really were foxtails or whether I kept getting it wrong. I went on towards our destination with my eyes fixed on the orchards, but saw nothing more. When the work was done we came back by the same road, and now I was fully alert, determined to be sure. It really was a foxtail.
I needed photographs. Had I been alone I would have jumped down, but Amma and my sister were with me, so getting off was out of the question. I decided to come back another day for the pictures. As the flowers came into view again I told everyone in the auto to look, and what Amma said when she saw them surprised me a little. These flowers, she said, used to grow in plenty on the trees around our house, and you do not see them any more.
Back to Kansat on the fourth day of Eid
I had meant to go for the photographs the very next day, but one thing led to another and there was never a chance. On the fourth day of Eid, Marzuk, Zaman, Shamim bhaiya, Momin bhaiya and I went out for a ride on motorcycles. Marzuk and I rode with Shamim bhaiya, and Zaman with Abdul Momin bhaiya.
Because our route went through Kansat, I remembered the photographs. I asked bhaiya to stop the bike for a moment, I had pictures to take. Marzuk came along to see whose picture I was taking. And there, at last, I got to see the foxtail up close.
Its roots had spread all over the trunk, as if the plant had claimed the tree as its kingdom, and they reminded me of the veins that stand out on an old man’s hands. The leaves deserve a word of praise too. Light green, about half a forearm long, narrowing suddenly towards the end, with a clear groove running down the middle. Each one looks exactly like a sword without a hilt.
And the flowers were not so much flowers as garlands. It was as if someone had threaded more than a hundred blossoms one by one into a neat string, hung it on the trunk and walked away. Not one garland either, but eight of them hanging together all round the tree. The colour catches the eye too, pink with a faint tinge of blue. The older flowers sit at the base and the newer ones open towards the tip, which is to say the inflorescence is a raceme.
I could make out a light, sweet scent as well. The moment I saw them I badly wanted to take a few home, but then what would the others get to see if I carried them off? That thought stopped me, and I left them where they were.
Not a parasite, an epiphyte
When we got home after the ride I showed the photographs to Shamim bhaiya, and he said almost exactly what Amma had said. So that is what you went to photograph, he said, those are just parasites. We played with them so much as children. They grew in the orchards all around, especially the one behind your house, where almost every mango tree had these flowers on it. They looked so pretty, but you do not find them now. For a moment I thought of telling him that a foxtail is not a parasite but an epiphyte. I never got the chance. Both parasites and epiphytes grow on another plant, a host, but a parasite harms its host and an epiphyte does no harm at all.
Thinking it over, I realised that I used to go to that orchard behind our house often enough, to play cricket or to collect fallen mangoes, yet I cannot remember ever seeing these flowers. Bhaiya’s words left me a little sad. Where is that old environment now? Trees are being cut down for houses, and everything is filling up with dust. We have made such a mess of our surroundings that we ourselves struggle to live in them, so how are sensitive plants and insects like these supposed to survive?
Getting to know the foxtail
Once home, I set about collecting information on the foxtail. The flower has no Bangla name of its own, so the English name has simply been carried over as foxtail, or just orchid for short, and it gets that name because it looks a little like a fox’s tail. The scientific name is Rhynchostylis retusa, a member of the family Orchidaceae. It grows best on the trunks of large trees in damp, shady places, and it is not host specific, meaning it can grow on almost any tree. Direct sunlight harms it.
It grows naturally in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Myanmar and China. Here it is found more or less everywhere, but most plentifully in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and other hilly areas. It usually flowers from May through June and July. The flowers hold nectar, so all sorts of insects, birds and bees keep coming and going around them, and carpenter bees in particular are known as the foxtail’s pollinators.
Compared with other plants the foxtail grows very slowly. Seeing a new seedling come up from seed is a matter of luck, because in most cases the seed dies before it ever becomes a seedling. It can be propagated by hand, though. Young offshoots that sprout from the base of a plant, once they have a few roots of their own, can be separated and planted elsewhere, and a new plant grows there.
The kopou phool of Assam
The foxtail grows in abundance in Assam in India, where many people plant it to beautify their homes. But it is not only about beauty there, the flower has a special role to play. In Assamese it is called kopou phool, and it is the state flower of Assam. When the new year arrives, during Bohag Bihu, Assamese women wear it in their hair. There, the foxtail is a symbol of love.
The foxtail has a few traditional medicinal uses as well. In folk medicine the fresh plant is used as an emollient and for rheumatic pain, and in the Malabar region preparations made from it are traditionally used for asthma, muscle cramps, dizziness and palpitations.
Before it is gone
With all these qualities, the foxtail is today under threat from environmental pollution and from unscrupulous traders. If something is not done soon, it may not be long before it disappears from among us altogether. Yes, I admit that growing it at home takes a bit of extra care: it needs watering on time and in the right amount, it needs feeding, and without that it dies. But for a plant this beautiful that is not too much trouble. That much we can surely do.
The traditional uses described here are for information only. Consult a doctor before using any plant to treat an illness.
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