INSIDE MAURITIUS THE ART OF DISCOVERY 72 The days are getting longer, announcing the start of summer. (…) On the Flamboyant trees, the buds are waiting in their cocoon for the sun to beat down on them. Not long now, they are quivering impatiently in the wind,” writes the Mauritian novelist Nathacha Appanah in her book Blue Bay Palace. And then suddenly, the buds burst open. Scarlet flowers enflame the sky as if in a huge shout of contagious laughter. These flowers love life, even though they perish so quickly. A gust of wind and they fall and dim by the roadside, carpeting the road with their short-lived blaze of crimson. Each year, for just a few weeks, the Flamboyant trees glow red in their own way. Quickly in the north of the island, slowly, almost lazily, in the south. In January, it puts on its light greenmantel made of foliage of little leaflets. FESTIVE DECORATIONS The Mauritians await the blossom impatiently. It’s their “Christmas tree”. Long ago, bus and truck drivers used to decorate their vehicles with these “fleurs banané” as they were traditionally called, for the end of year festivities. The custom has disappeared, but the Flamboyant remains the life of the island. Yet its roots are Madagascan, as the Brazilian ecologist and botanist Cláudia Baider explains. She is in chargeof the Mauritius Herbarium. “A Flamboyant tree was discovered near Foulpointe, Madagascar, in 1824, by the botanist Wenceslas Bojer (1795-1856). « FLAMBOYANT TREES WERE DISCOVERED IN MADAGASCAR IN 1824 BY THE BOTANIST WENCESLAS BOJER WHO SENT THEIR SEEDS TO MAURITIUS. EN 1824, LE BOTANISTE WENCESLAS BOJER DÉCOUVRIT LE FLAMBOYANT À MADAGASCAR ET ENVOYA SES GRAINES À MAURICE. In Albion (1), the Mauritian flag waves in the wind, blending in with the branches of a Flamboyant. Quite a symbol. A cascade of reds, like a caress from the gods, from earth to sky (2). À Albion (1), le drapeau de l’île Maurice claque dans le vent en se mêlant aux branches d’un flamboyant. Tout un symbole… Un dégradé de rouge comme une caresse des dieux, de la terre au ciel (2). 1
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