SWD work brings inosculation to light on East Coast Road

When the unusual is in plain sight, it usually escapes notice. It often takes unusual circumstances for it to become obvious. It took a massive stormwater drain work on East Coast Road to underline the extent of connectedness shared by three trees pressed together and in time, not only growing together but growing into one another.

These trees are united in a manner that they share a part of their being with one another. It is a case of inosculation of two Indian ash trees and a banyan tree. Inosculation is natural grafting that occurs when two or more young trees are pressed against one another and continue to grow in that state. The abrasion of bark that results from this pressing together leads to grafting, actually self-grafting as human hands are far from the scene.

This example of inosculation on ECR had remained hidden from sight until recently when the State Highways Department’s stormwater drain work on the arterial road removed the veil over it while knocking down a part of a compound wall.

An inosculation of a banyan tree, a neem tree and an Indian ash tree in Injambakkam on East Coast Road | Photo Credit: PRINCE FREDERICK

In the space that serves as parking for vehicles carrying visitors to VGP, largely buses, this inosculation has happened. The trio is “clamped’ on both sides of the compound wall. Obviously, the aerial root system of the banyan would have engineered this straddling effect, but the Indian ash trees being intertwined with the banyan and united morphologically, they seem to have orchestrated it together. When entities become a team, individual attributes are distributed among them.

The trio is said to be safe as the stormwater drain work would only brush against it. However, the danger of the compound wall being knocked down persists. If the wall is brought down, this trio would come down with it. At the time of this article going to press, this trio was safe.