India GOTrees of Munnar
Neelakurinji
Munnar has two separate Neelakurinji populations on offset cycles, a detail most guides get wrong. The Eravikulam National Park population last bloomed in 2018 and is next due in 2030. A different population on Chokramudi, Korandakkad near Mattupetty and the Meesapulimala slopes bloomed in 1990, 2002 and 2014 and is flowering in 2026 (from late August at Chokramudi, expected to hold through September into October), so in 2026 the kurinji is out, but not inside Eravikulam.
Strobilanthes kunthiana
Nilgiri rhododendron
Eravikulam National Park covers roughly 94 per cent of this subspecies' modelled distribution. It is also the one shola tree that survives grassland fire, which is why old individuals stand out alone on burnt slopes.
Rhododendron arboreum subsp. nilagiricum
Shola magnolia (nilagirica)
The shola-grassland mosaic is not a degraded forest: it is an ancient natural system. The other characteristic shola trees here are Syzygium, Litsea, Elaeocarpus, Symplocos and Ilex, with the laurel family dominant in species number.
Magnolia nilagirica
Tea
J.D. Munro leased the Kannan Devan Hills in 1877, and the planters first tried coffee, cardamom, cinchona and sisal before tea proved suited to the altitude; the first tea went in at Parvathy, now Seven Mallay estate, on about 50 acres in 1880. Today it shapes every view around Munnar. The grassland and shola that the tea replaced is the habitat the endemic birds and the kurinji need.
Camellia sinensis
Black wattle
Wattle invasion is named in the IUCN assessment as one of the drivers behind Neelakurinji's Vulnerable listing, and it is squeezing the Nilgiri pipit's grassland at the same time. It is worth pointing out, because a wall of wattle photographs like forest and is not.
Acacia mearnsii
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