India, Feb. 20 -- Attached to the tips of stiff stalks, the pink flowers defy gravity, rising upwards into the pitch blue sky.

Dear reader, postpone all your plans, and head to Lodhi Garden. There, for a long time, a tree has been standing near the centuries-old Sheesh Gumbad, towards a corner of the monument-facing lawn. The tree looks unremarkable most of the year. But these days it is starkly standing out from all the other trees in the vast park. It is in a dense bloom. Not a single leaf is present to interrupt the floral cascades.

Since the flowers are pink, and are shaped into a trumpet, they are called pink trumpet. Per the book Trees of Delhi, the tree has no local name, and that it arrived in our city from tropical America. Thi...