Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Flora of Mauritius

Dear readers This is part two of the unique species of Mauritius. Although there are many more plants that can be found in Mauritius only, I will point out only four. These are The Trochetia This Bush plant is an endangered species. It's flower is the emblem of Mauritius

picture from josie et claude
Talipot This unique plam tree only flowers once in a life-time (some says every 100 years). As far as I can recall, this last happened about 15 years ago
picture from encyclopedia of mauritius
The Black Ebony Ebony itself can be found in many countries. However, the black ebony is unique in Mauritius. It almost got extinct since the time of the dutch while they were exporting the woods to europe. It use to be the finest wood for furniture and even to build ships. This young black ebony tree is the only picture I could find
picture from institute for environmental and legal studies
The Flamboyant If you have ever been in Mauritius, you may recall these trees along the sides of many major roads. We also call them "Bouquet Bananee" because they flower around new years time.
picture from nilesh.doosoye.com
I know that this is a brief post but feel free to comment or contribute

7 comments:

Hadia ( pseudoname) said...

wow, nice!!

Anonymous said...

Beautiful!
Can't wait to take plenty of photos when I'm there! :P
~ moi-carine.com

Fayrouz said...

Faisal,

I really want to visit your country. It's really beautiful.

Would one week trip for two be expensive? How are the hotels prices?

Jaeboy said...

wow nicey :P you got any larger shots?

Mister Ghost said...

Don't forget the most famous inhabitant of Mauritius:
The Dodo Bird:

Perhaps the most well known ?extinct? animal next to the dinosaurs and ice age mammals is the Dodo bird, Raphus cucullatus. Done in by it?s fearlessness of man and the introduction of monkeys, rats, and pigs to it?s island home, the Dodo ?officially? disappeared from Mauritius in 1681. With its solitairy cousins surviving on Rèunion until 1750 and on Rodriguez until 1800. So it appears the dodo was dead forever, extinct. Or was it?

An article appearing in London's The Mail on Sunday newspaper, reported that an Englishman vacationing in Mauritius spied a Dodo walking along the beach. A similar report appeared two years earlier, made by a Frenchman visiting Mauritius. It's thought that these reports are either hoaxes or misidentifications of known birds, perhaps the giant petrel. It's also reported from the people of Mauritius that Dodo like birds can be seen at dusk and at dawn along the beaches of a secluded rainforest known as Plain Champagne. Nevertheless, the likelihood of even a few Dodos escaping a hungry sailors stomach or the infectious rats is remotely slim. For any of the three major islands in the Mascarenes group at least.

There are a number of minor Mascarenes islands that are scarcely visited, some of which have never even been explored. These are the islands that living Dodo?s might just be discovered on one day in the future. Researcher Bill Gibbons intends to carry out a number of expeditions to the Mascarenes isles in search of the Dodo. To date none have been rediscovered.
http://www.cryptozoology.com/glossary/
glossary_topic.php?id=20

Fej said...

Faisal,

It looks very beautiful on Mauritius. I would really like to see it someday if possible.

Anonymous said...

these picture are very nice