Neelakurinji, Recorded Flowering Across the Nilgiris Since 1826, Is in Bloom Around Munnar in 2026 on a 12-Year Cycle, and Kerala Is Booking Visitors Into Slots to Protect It

Neelakurinji (Strobilanthes kunthiana) flowers once in about 12 years, and in 2026 it is in bloom around Munnar in Kerala’s Idukki district. The Munnar divisional forest officer opened the season at the Chokramudi Bison Valley Trail trekking centre on 24 August, South First reported on 28 August 2026, and the Kerala Forest Development Corporation (KFDC) opened Meesapulimala to visitors on 26 October, the Free Press Journal reported. Eravikulam National Park, the better-known viewing site, is not in flower this year. Its plants bloomed in 2018, and Kerala Tourism gives 2030 as the next expected mass flowering there.

Why Munnar has two bloom years

Forest officials told South First that the Munnar hills hold two distinct flowering cycles. One is in Eravikulam National Park, where the last bloom was in 2018 and the next is expected in 2030. The other covers Chokramudi, Meesapulimala and the slopes around them, where the last flowering at Chokramudi was recorded in 2014, which makes 2026 the next cycle. The Better India, in a piece of 31 August 2026, describes the same split and calls the Chokramudi plants a different population on their own 12-year clock, not an early version of the 2030 bloom.

Onmanorama reported on 11 July 2026 that plants at Chokramudi had begun flowering and that Edalimedu, Sevenmala, Gundamala and Meesapulimala were expected to follow. South First adds that the 2026 flowering is happening outside protected wildlife areas, unlike the one at Eravikulam. The plants now in flower should return around 2038, The Better India writes, which is its projection from the 12-year interval.

A shrub that flowers once

Neelakurinji belongs to the acanthus family and grows in shola grasslands, the high-altitude grass slopes of the Western Ghats broken by pockets of forest. The Kerala Tourism page puts it at 1,500 to 2,500 m. A review in the Bulletin of the National Research Centre describes an undershrub of 30 to 60 cm that can pass 2 m in good conditions.

Botanists call this pattern plietesial flowering: the plant stays in a leafy, non-flowering stage for years, flowers once together with its neighbours, sets seed and dies. South First notes that Strobilanthes species run on cycles anywhere from one to 16 years and that S. kunthiana is known for 12. The IUCN assessment records a generation length of 12 years for the species.

The same review, citing field studies, says flowering starts in the second week of August, peaks by the third week of September and tapers off by the end of October, and that a hillside stays blue for roughly two and a half months. Honey bees pollinate the flowers, Down To Earth reports. South First notes that a rare honey called kurinjithen is collected when the plants bloom in large numbers. The review cites a count of about 700 seedlings per square metre in the monsoon after flowering.

The reason for the 12-year gap is still open. The review sets out two explanations from the literature: that a big synchronised display improves cross-pollination, and that so many seeds appear at once that seed-eating animals cannot take them all. It states that the mechanism keeping whole hillsides in step is not known. It also reports that some plants flower in the years before and after the main bloom.

Two centuries on record

South First cites M. E. Robinson’s paper on the 1934 flowering, published in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society in 1936, as recording a flowering across the Nilgiri Hills in 1826 and full blooms in 1838, 1850, 1862, 1874, 1886, 1898, 1910, 1922 and 1934. ICAR’s magazine Indian Horticulture gives the same series. Down To Earth continues it with 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006 and 2018.

Hill communities built that rhythm into their own reckoning of time. South First reports that for the Muthuvan and Paliyan communities the bloom works as a calendar for counting age, and Down To Earth says the Paliyar use the flowering period to calculate their ages. The review says the name Nilgiris, the Blue Mountains, may be attributed to the flowering, and South First says the range is traditionally associated with the colour.

In the Sangam poetry of Tamil Nadu the hill country is one of five regions, called tinai, and its name is kurinji; our piece on Sangam literature lays out the system. Down To Earth reports that Tamil scholars hold the classification was based on the characteristic plant of each region.

What the Red List and Kerala’s sanctuary record

The IUCN assessed the species on 31 January 2024 and listed it as Vulnerable under criterion A2c. The assessment, by Amitha Bachan K. H. and M. A. Devika, records 34 locations between 1,340 and 2,600 m in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, an estimated 5,400,000 mature individuals, a decreasing and severely fragmented population, and 51 to 60 percent of the population inside protected areas.

Kerala has had a sanctuary for the plant since 2006. The state forest department’s table lists Kurinjimala Sanctuary at 32 sq km, formed in 2006, and says it protects Nilgiri tahr habitat and the neelakurinji’s own. ICAR’s article places it in the Vattavada and Kottakamboor villages near Munnar. The tahr and the Eravikulam herd are covered in our Nilgiri tahr article, and the wider range in the one on the Western Ghats World Heritage listing.

The National Green Tribunal took up the plant on its own motion after a report in The Hindu on 10 August 2024. In a joint reply of 15 July 2025, the Botanical Survey of India and the environment ministry accepted that the Vulnerable classification was justified by population reduction, disputed the estimated rate of decline and asked for a fresh survey, Down To Earth reported. The reply added that the plant occurs at more than 34 locations and has recently been found as low as about 1,100 m.

South First describes an April order of the tribunal that drew on findings from the Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute. It sets out the institute’s finding that montane grassland was lost to tea and exotic tree plantations, and that afforestation with eucalyptus and wattle (Acacia mearnsii) from the 1960s to the 1990s, invasive plants, changed fire practices and heavy visitor numbers during mass flowering add to the pressure. South First adds that the environment ministry has asked the tribunal to direct Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to include neelakurinji measures in their annual plans of operation.

Seeing the 2026 bloom

These details were checked on 5 November 2026 against the reports below. Fees and slots change, so confirm them with the forest department or KFDC before you travel.

At Chokramudi, Onmanorama reported on 16 August that the entrance is near the Forest Department range office at Devikulam, on the Munnar to Bodimettu road. Entry was set at Rs 200 for adults and Rs 50 for children under 18, from 7 am to 4 pm, with online booking to open on the department’s website. Private vehicles and taxis are not allowed beyond Munnar town, where visitors board KSRTC shuttle buses to the entrance.

At Meesapulimala, Onmanorama reported on 29 October that KFDC takes visitors by vehicle to the base camp through Silent Valley Estate, followed by a 5 km off-road drive. The four-hour package, priced at Rs 1,416 with travel, snacks and a guide, is capped at 750 people a day and booked online or through the Kurinji app. The Free Press Journal says registration and a permit are compulsory. Onmanorama describes the season as almost over at Munnar’s other spots, so a late visit should be confirmed first.

Plucking or uprooting the plant can bring a fine of up to Rs 25,000, up to three years in prison, or both, Onmanorama reported on 29 October. The Devikulam range officer made the same warning, Onmanorama reported on 16 August, after reports of tourists uprooting plants for photographs at Ikka Nagar.

Eravikulam is not flowering in 2026. Kerala Tourism says the Rajamala section is the tourist zone for seeing tahr, and that the park closes every February and March for the calving season. It lists Cochin International Airport and Aluva railway station as the nearest airport and station to Munnar.

Kerala Tourism gives 2030 as the next expected bloom at Eravikulam, and The Better India expects the Chokramudi plants to flower again around 2038.