Kurinji

Botany

Far up in the Nilgiri hills, a vast expanse of grassland at the southern edge of India’s Western Ghat mountain range, the verdant landscape is usually only interrupted by a flash of colour from tea plantation workers and their brilliant saris. But once a decade the hills above the tea fields erupt in an explosion of blue and purple, thanks to the kurinji plant, a tiny flower that blossoms just once every 12 years and is found solely in the southern Western Ghats.