Offering locals an aesthetic sight to behold, a river, donning the colour pink, in Kerala has become a tourist’s favourite destination.
The river in Kozhikode’s Avala Pandi near Perambra turned pink after being blanketed by millions of Forked Fanwort flowers. The pink flower plant belongs to the family of Cabomba furcata and is known locally as ‘mullan payal’.
Notably, the occurrence of these flowers on the water body in Kozhikode is not an annual phenomenon. The locals recall that they, for the first time, had spotted these flowers in the river a couple of years ago but in small numbers.
While the Forked Fanwort flowers in Avala Pandi is an ‘invasive species,’ it is not the only place in Kerala, where flowers have turned an entire area pink.
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Meanwhile, the spawning of these flowers in the region has allowed some to make a living out of it.
Beauty, also a beast!!
Also, a botanist Dr P Dileep in conversation with ieMalayalam of Indian Express revealed that the plants, which are mainly seen in the village of Avala Pandi, might be beautiful to look at but are a threat to local water bodies due to its invasive characteristics.
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As described by Wikipedia, “an invasive species is most often a non-native species that spread from a point of introduction to become naturalized and negatively alters its new environment.”
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Their unprecedented growth in the water bodies, he said, could be a result of a lesser number of people in the water bodies.
