The Mumbai Tree Project
Tree Stories
Trees bring beauty into the bleakest concrete jungle and serve as a focus for social and spiritual activities. They connect us with our past, with distant lands, and with faintly remembered stories.
Here are a few Mumbai trees that are the protagonists of lovely stories.
All photos, unless stated otherwise, have been taken by us in 2023.
Check out our interviews with naturalists and experts here:
Dr. David Livingstone Mahogany
On Rampart Row, on the pavement across Hornbill House, stands a beautiful Mahogany tree that is of special interest to naturalists and local historians. This tree was planted in 1865 by Dr David Livingstone, the famous explorer who spent much of his life seeking the source of the Nile and who visited Bombay on a number of occasions. In fact, it is believed that he lost much of his money when a Bombay bank collapsed.
The Badhwar Park baobab
The Colaba Railway Station played a key role in the history and growing prosperity of Bombay in the late 19th and early 20th century. Although the station was demolished almost 100 years ago, the baobab tree of Badhwar Park marks the spot where once bales of cotton arrived from the hinterland to be traded at the neighbouring cotton green.
Foul play at fort
In 2017-2018, tree lovers were in an uproar when they suspected that two Portia trees (Thespesia populnea) growing on the pavement along Hutatma Chowk had died. Close observation showed that a number of holes had been drilled into the trees and the activists feared that a fashion brand, which had opened a huge store in the area, had drilled the holes and injected poison into these old and beautiful trees. Happily, over the last year the trees have revived and new leaves have begun sprouting– proving that they are hardy and worthy Mumbaikars.
Bombay stock exchange banyan
Just outside Horniman Circle stands a massive banyan tree that once played a critical role in the city’s financial history. It’s believed that a group of traders used to meet beneath its leafy branches in the 1850s to trade in stocks, and that it was from those humble beginnings that the Bombay Stock Exchange was born. In fact,many believe that the name “banyan tree” comes from the word Baniya (trader) because of this old connection.
Bimlis and Books
Around 40 years ago, a building in South Mumbai boasted two bimbli trees. Irritated by the fact that all the neighbourhood children would climb the trees to pluck handfuls of the tart and juicy fruit, a few residents had the trees cut down. This unfortunate incident is the story behind a children’s book called `The Six Spellmakers of Dorabji Street’ about two bimbli trees and a group of children.
T.I.F.R Tree Transplants
Many of the trees planted in the complex of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research were rescued and transplanted from various corners of the city. In `Growing the Tree of Science’, Indira Choudhury writes: S. D. Vaidya recollects the very first tree transplant he undertook at Bhabha’s request – it was the raintree outside Kenilworth that was to be felled because Peddar Road was to become a wider road. Hesitant at first because of the expense involved, but encouraged by Bhabha, Vaidya undertook the project. Over the years the TIFR complex and the housing colony became home to a number of full-grown trees that were transplanted according to Bhabha’s wishes and instructions. The first instance of such transplantation within the new complex of the institute was the shifting of the mimusops hexandra in August 1962 from Napean Sea Road, Malabar Hills, to the car park area by the side of the auditorium. The following year a baobab tree was uprooted and shifted to the institute premises from Marol-Maroshi Road because it was about to be felled as part of road-widening plans. This practice remained a part of the institute’s horticultural ritual even after the founder’s death.
In 1970, a massive baobab, about 18 feet in circumference, was brought from Napean Sea Road and transplanted inside TIFR’s residential complex. The exercise took nearly three days, with TIFR gardening staff working in two shifts and JRD Tata himself looking in on the operation. The tree was moved with the help of three cranes. Balanced on two trailers, it journeyed for a full day to its destination inside the housing colony, where it still stands.
from the T.I.F.R archives
Gentle Giants
Matunga has seen tremendous urbanisation in the last few decades. Tall buildings, flyovers, traffic. But the two gentle giants of Mumbai – the enormous padauk trees (Pterocarpus indicus) near Arora Cinema – continue to lend loveliness to the area.