Crescentia cujete
Fruit of the calabash tree ( Crescentia cujete )
The Calabash Tree ( Crescentia cujete ) is a plant from the family of Bignoniaceae ( Bignoniaceae ). From the fruits ( gourds ) can similarly from the bottle gourd ( Lagenaria siceraria ) drinking vessels are made, which explains the German name of the species.
Description
The calabash tree is about 8 to 10 ( rarely up to 13 ) meters high tree with a short, straight trunk that reaches a diameter at breast height of 25 centimeters. The wood is odorless and easy to handle, usually, the pink to reddish brown sapwood be distinguished from light brown heartwood. It has a gray-brown, cracked bark. The few wide overhanging branches form a broad, open crown.
The sessile, simple leaves are arranged in groups of three to five to tufts, rarely are they inserted alternate at branch tips. The leaf shape is oval to spatulate with the widest point near the blade tip. The Leaves are deep green and slightly glossy, the underside is duller and paler. Young shoots are light gray to light brown. The information on the size of the leaves varies, as indicated minimal length 3.5 to a maximum of 26 inches, the width is between 1 and 7.6 centimeters. Most of the calabash tree is referred to as evergreen, but this is only true for areas without a pronounced dry seasons. In other areas known to be very drought fixed nature throws at the beginning of the dry season from the foliage.
The flowers grow singly or in pairs directly on the trunk or thick branches ( cauliflory ) to hairy, 1.5 to 3 cm long pedicles. The hermaphrodite flowers are fünfzählig and slightly zygomorphic. The usually smooth green sepals are fused together into one about 2 inches long, deeply incised chalice. The five hairy petals are fused into a bell-shaped corolla tube of white to greenish yellow with red stripes, which has a length of 5 inches and a diameter of 3 to 7.5 centimeters. The four fertile stamens are shorter than the corolla tube. The flowers open at night and fall on the following morning again; they smell of camphor and mustard oil. Bloom time is throughout the year ( according to other data in the month of June). Pollination is by bats.
The fruits are round to elliptical. The fruits of the wild type have a size of about 10 inches, fruits from cultivars can reach a length of 45 centimeters and a diameter of 30 centimeters. They are initially green, later yellow and brown mature. The shell is thin, hard and durable. The flesh is white, juicy, and contains numerous flat, dark brown seeds 6-8 mm in length.
Distribution and habitat requirements
The natural home of the calabash tree should probably be the West Indies and the area from southern Mexico to Peru and Brazil. The original home is unknown, since the type is already, perhaps since more than 600 years, cultivated in pre-Hispanic times. The calabash tree is also grown in other countries with tropical climates, but not in their home or in other areas, there are large, for-profit plantations.
Crescentia cujete is well adapted to tropical drylands, drought and frost sensitive. The species grows from sea level to altitudes of about 800 meters, in areas with an annual rainfall from 1300 to 1500 millimeters and a mean temperature of about 26 ° C. At natural sites in the Caribbean is often found together with the type tree-like cacti of the genus Lamaireocereus.
Use
From the already harvested before maturity, dried, hollowed and polished fruit drinking vessels, containers for food and liquids, but also maracas ( maracas ) were prepared. Holed fruits serve prospectors for sieving river sand.
The pulp and the seeds are popular medicine used as a laxative and diuretic.
The timber can be used as fuel. It has also been used in the construction of small boats.