The twelve-year flower: neelakurinji on Chokramudi, August 2026

On 24 August 2026 the Kerala Forest Department opened a Kurinji Garden on the slopes of Chokramudi and began selling tickets to look at a flower. Where its gate is has been reported two ways — near Gap Road on opening day, beside the Devikulam Forest Range Office 6.4 km away in the reports a week earlier — and Roampedia’s Lockhart Gap page measures both. That is not a small thing to do, and it is worth understanding what the flower is before deciding whether to go.

What neelakurinji does

Strobilanthes kunthiana is a shrub of the high grasslands of the Western Ghats. It grows quietly for years, then flowers gregariously — every plant in a population at once, turning whole hillsides violet-blue — sets seed, and dies back. The cycle is twelve years. Because different populations across the range are on different cohorts, one hill can be in full bloom in a year when the famous Eravikulam display, thirty-seven kilometres round by road, is doing nothing at all. That is what is happening here.

The Malayalam press has been running the story since mid-August. Manorama listed the spots — Nallathanni, Munnar town, Mattupetty, the Devikulam Gap Road, and Chokramudi — and quoted botanists expecting the grasslands to go fully blue through September, with the peak over the Onam holidays.

The terms

Onmanorama’s report on the opening day gives the tariff as ₹200 for adults, ₹100 for ages 10 to 18 and ₹400 for foreigners, with ₹50 for a still camera and ₹100 for video. Visiting hours are 07:00 to 16:00. Drones are strictly banned because of the wildlife, and damaging the plants carries a stated penalty of ₹25,000 and up to three years’ imprisonment. ⚠ Manorama’s Malayalam report a week earlier gave the under-18 rate as ₹50 rather than ₹100; neither figure sits on a departmental tariff page we could find, so both are recorded here.

It is not the trek

This is the thing to get right at the counter. The Kurinji Garden and the summit trek are two different products sold on the same hill: different hours, different tariffs, and — as far as the reports describe it — different ground. The trek is reported at ₹400 for Indians and ₹600 for foreigners and runs from 05:30. If you want the summit, say so; if you want the flowers, you may not need to climb at all.

One practical warning. The 2026 kurinji rush has already produced reports of vehicle restrictions on the Munnar approaches, with shuttle buses running from town in place of private cars and taxis. If you are coming on a weekend in September, assume the road may be managed and check before you drive.