Where have all the flowers gone?

Letter from Anthony Yeo, Straits Times Forum 12 Jan 08;

FOR many years as I drove to my office in Hong Lim Complex, I was greeted by a row of luxuriant flowering cannonball tress lining Cross Street beside China Square.

This must be one of the most nurtured rows of cannonball trees here, with beautiful scented flowers blooming every other day.

Not only were these trees a refreshing sight to behold on my way to work, but the aromatic scent of its flowers also often awakened my senses whenever I stopped at the traffic junction of Cross Street and South Bridge Road.

Now these trees are gone except for one lone tree standing amid concrete patches covering the places where the other trees once stood.

That was the shocking welcome I received on my way to work the other day, on my return from vacation.

What used to be a refreshing sight has left me in grief over the cruel demolition of such beautiful flowering trees that provided sight, scent and shade.