The most amazingly large trees that we saw in the Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary in Thattekad were what were called, in Malayalam, the Chini tree. Here’s one of the tallest that we saw. The size of this tree was so awesome…here it is, soaring into the air:

When I googled for the name, I realized that I had seen these trees before, at the Ta Phrom Temple in Angkor Wat..... here's the Wiki link, and I added to the Wiki, too! Here's the sign (in Malayalam) about it....all I can read of it is, "Chini" at the top! and I just could not stop looking at the titan.. And to give you an idea of its size, here's Adarsh with the tree... Adarsh would be 5'10'' or so, I would think. Just look at its root, (I've got Adarsh there to show the scale) Some of the other flora we saw were beautiful, too. I loved the fractal design of this fern: Then we came to this tree, which bears edible fruit. Karthik id'd this as BACCAUREA COURTALLENSIS; the fruit of the tree is somewhat like tamarind, and is edible: Here's a close up of the fruit: </lj-cut> Let me close with this lovely, but un-id, wildflower that we saw: Plenty of other interesting flora met our eyes, but photography became impossible sometimes, with poor light and pouring rain!