Early visitors to Kas Plateau disappointed as rain affects flowering at site this year

Pune: Early visitors to the Kas Plateau, a Unesco World Heritage Site in Satara district, this year were disappointed by the blooms.The late onset of blooming, coupled with rains and partial sunlight, led to the flowering of only a few varieties this year. "We saw many videos on social media from last year's flowering at Kas and booked our tickets early so that we could see it before the crowds began. However, we could only see seven to 10 varieties of flowers. It was also foggy and cloudy," said Mumbai resident Nandini Chokshi. Janhavi Shinde from Kothrud thought she would get to see the purplish-blue karvi flowers that were a highlight at the plateau last year. "But, the tour operator told us that karvi flowers bloom only once in seven years and some varieties bloom once in three years. We may see some varieties by the end of Sept or Oct, but there were none when we went recently."Environment researcher Datta Jagtap said, "Flowers will definitely be fewer than last year. Since rains have reduced over the last two to three days, we are seeing good blooms of the yellow Smithia flowers. Karvi is absent for now. The rest of the flowering will be climate-dependent."Highlights of the season are likely to be species of Ceropegia (kandil pushpa), ground species of orchids Habenaria, and Ceropegia vincifolia. Interestingly, visitors would also get to see some carnivorous (fly-catchers) varieties of flowers like Drosera indica and Drosera burmannii.Kolhapur-based environment researcher and photographer Umakant Chavan said, "Owing to a good amount of sunlight and partial shade over the last couple of days, local flowers like Smithia (yellow) and Utricularia malabarica (purple) have bloomed more than usual and taken up 60% of the space at the plateau." The flower season at Kas Plateau kicked off on Sept 4, and tours for the month are completely booked in anticipation of a great show. "On Sept 7, we took the first batch to Kas Plateau. While the place itself was beautiful, we saw some local varieties of flowers like sonki and terda, but there were no rare, unusual varieties," said Suyash Bhosale, who runs Samartha Ecotourism.Aniket Kadam from Maharashtra Hikes said that while tours are full, there was some disappointment in the last few visits. "After the stellar flowering from last year, people are definitely disappointed this year. Also, despite the volunteers and authorities being strict, when it is crowded, it is difficult to control people from walking over flower patches."