Do cacti have flowers

This innocent question was asked by a five-year-old when 40 students from Rotary Club of Bombay’s Lighthouse class visited the Bombay Port Trust Sagar Upvan garden at Colaba on January 25, 2019. Four teachers and three mothers
from the machimaar community accompanied the children on this trip.

The visit was planned to coincide with the topic of ‘plants’ that the students are currently learning as part of the new ‘Engage’ curriculum. In the garden, the children observed different varieties of plants from tall coconut palms to small flowering shrubs. They were excited to see tamarind trees and shouted: “Imli grows on trees”

They even got the opportunity to view exotic species of cacti in a greenhouse. They were happily surprised to see
small flowers on some cacti which they had thought only had thorns. A fruitful excursion, the children returned eager
to jot down their observations in their notebooks.