Umera Riyaz
This week Kerala has been on a buzz on social media for its viral “pink river”. This river, which is located in Kozhikode’s Avala Pandi near Perambra, has turned pink because of Forked Fanwort flowers.
The flower is locally known as Mullan Payal and belongs to the Cabomba furcata family. This is not a native plant of India. It is a native plant of South America and is commonly known to be used as an aquarium plant.
It is said that this flower has entered the water body by accident or is a manmade mistake. Biologists suggest that this invasion of the alien plant into a river body is harmful to the local ecology, as reported by India Times.
However, this pink river has a spectacular view and has become a new tourist attraction for the locals.
This is not the first water body to change colour in India. Earlier, this year in June the Lonar Crater Lake in Maharastra’s Buldhana district had also changed its colour to pink.