Munnar Neelakurinji 2018

If you are reading this and missed 2018, mark your calendar for .

When I close my eyes, I don't just see the 2018 Neelakurinji. I feel it. I remember walking through a corridor of shola forest, emerging onto a viewpoint at Eravikulam, and gasping—actually gasping—because the world had turned into a watercolor painting.

The Neelakurinji is a rare and endangered species, and its conservation is crucial to preserving the biodiversity of the Western Ghats. The Kerala Forest Department and other conservation organizations have been working to protect the Neelakurinji and its habitat. munnar neelakurinji 2018

Neelakurinji (Strobilanthes kunthianus) is a rare and endangered flowering plant species, native to the Western Ghats of India. The name "Neelakurinji" is derived from the Malayalam words "Neela" meaning blue and "Kurinji" referring to the hill regions. This unique plant species has a fascinating life cycle, with a flowering cycle of 12 years, making its blooming a rare and highly anticipated event.

It was also a technical marvel for photographers. Capturing Kurinji is hard. The blue color tends to get washed out in DSLR sensors. The best photos came from the analog film shooters and those with patience, waiting for the golden hour when the low sun painted the blue hills in hues of amber. If you are reading this and missed 2018,

By September, Munnar was bursting at the seams. What is usually a quiet hill station saw over 50,000 tourists on a single weekend. The 20-km road from Munnar town to the national park turned into a parking lot.

Everyone wanted a piece of the blue.

There is no denying the core of the experience: the visual was astounding. The Eravikulam National Park and the surrounding hills of Kovilur and Vattavada looked as though a purple velvet blanket had been draped over the Western Ghats.

If you weren't in the rolling high ranges of Munnar in 2018, you missed a spectacle that the planet only offers once every 4,380 days. But for those of us who were there, standing on the misty slopes of Eravikulam National Park as the hills turned into a carpet of sapphire velvet, we didn't just witness a bloom. We witnessed a calendar. I remember walking through a corridor of shola

Let’s step back in time to that monsoon season when the Western Ghats held its breath and turned blue.