23 August 2010

TERMINALIA IVORENSIS

This Terminalia ivorensis (common name: Ivory Coast Almond, Black Afara) from the Combretaceae Family at the Singapore Botanic Gardens' HQ flowered recently.

Before this, the tree shed all its leaves for quite a long period and I was observing it frequently every time I walked there because I thought it might have died. Although I know Terminalias are deciduous, I was still worried about this tree. Fortunately, the new leaves appeared and the whole tree looked perfectly healthy after that.

And then it flowered. This was like the culmination of all good things to come. Look how beautiful the white flowers were. Too bad my camera was stolen, otherwise I would be able to capture close-up photos of the flowers.