POSTCARD N.177 - SRI LANKA

Postcard sent on the 19th March, received on the 1st April 2025.

Postcard image: Nine Arch Bridge, Ella - Lanka. 

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Ravi sends me another great card from Sri Lanka. This time with another aerial view of what I hear is a quite famous bridge in the country, and which had also been previously covered in Postcard #145. Bohomȧ  sthoothi, Ravindra!

What I find amazing in this image is the general idea it lets one have of the scenery engulfing the viaduct. In fact as opposed to the also great image on postcard 145, the orographic accidents of the scenery and its overwhelming green nature, really lends the viewer an idea of the surroundings and of what an immensely difficult task it must have been to build such an imposing infrastructure in the early days of the 20th century.

Again, as I mentioned a propos the shot on postcard #145,  I cannot even imagine the impact on the image of a cloud of white smoke coming out of the locomotive on the photo, against all that deep green....ah, things were much harder and I am sure "those were not the days", but there is a beauty in steam locomotives that has yet to be matched...  😀

Ravindra had already sent me most of  the ten 15 Rupee stamps issued in minisheet form on 03FEB2020, celebrating World Wetlands Day, which is annually commemorated on that particular date.

On this particular postcard he was careful to use the 4 stamps on the set which he had not used before, a gesture I truly appreciate. As such, from left to right top to bottom, we have:

- Nipa Palm (Nipa fruticans), a species which can be found in the costline and estuarine habitats of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, being uncommon in that the trunk actually grows beneath the ground, while the leaves grow upwards, above the surface.

- Bruguiera cylindrica, another mangrove dweller of tropical Asia, which can grow up to 20 metres high

- Large-leafed orange mangrove (Bruguiera gymnorhiza), a relative of the previous species, of the same Rhizophoraceae family,  with which it shares the Genus. It can be found in mangroves from the Western Pacific across Indian Ocean coasts to Cape Province, South Africa.

- Stemonoporus moonii, a member of the Dipterocarpaceae family, endemic to Sri lanla and Critically Threathned due to loss of habitat.

The fifth stamp on the postcard is illustrated with an image of a Scyphiphora hydrophyllacea, another mangrove dweller that occurs from India to tropical Asia and the western Pacific. It is the sole species of its genus, in the Rubiaceae family.

Postmark, as usual, from the central Post Office at Columbus, Sri Lanka's economic capital.