Trees in my Garden 4

16. Nandi Flame (Spathodea). A truly local tree, named after Kenya’s Nandi Hills, and celebrated in ‘The Flame Trees of Thika’. Its greatest feature is its bright orange-red clusters of flowers, with petals edged with yellow, creating its spectacular flame effect. The bark is also good for curing liver complaints, and when boiled makes a great treatment for nappy rash! And hummingbirds love them. A flaming great tree!

17. African Wild Date Palm (Phoenix reclinata). A handsome maverick of a tree, 5 metres high with a regal crown of fronds. Even though this tree’s main purpose is to look impressive, you can, if you are hungry enough, eat its oval shaped fruit once they ripen from green to brown. Or you can try climbing up its old leaf scarred trunk, and sit opulently among its dioecious (either male or female) flowers!

18. Weeping Fig (Ficus benjamina). When you need some shade, try sitting under this tree. It’s a big evergreen, with drooping foliage that keeps you cool all day long. Apparently it’s the official tree of Bangkok – well the sun’s pretty hot there, so they need all the natural air-conditioning they can get.

19. African Pencil Cedar (Juniperus procera). An evergreen highland forest tree. It has prickly leaves, and grows small yellow male cones and purple-blue female cones, which look a bit like berries. The timber is great for house-building, making poles, posts, furniture, pencils and as beehives. It’s also great for fuel. If you grind up the young twigs and buds and then soak them in water you will have a great cure for intestinal worms! Yum yum.

20. Indian Rubber Plant (Ficus elastica). Another tree familiar to British indoor plant aficionados. But this one is about 20m tall. It’s actually part of the banyan family of fig trees, and it lives in a co-evolved relationship with the fig wasp, that it relies on for pollination. In some parts of India these trees are used to form ‘living bridges’ by growing them over chasms, some of them over 500 years old! The ‘rubber’ name comes from the latex in the tree – at one time these trees were used to make rubber, but they are not the main commercial source of rubber – that is the pará rubber tree. In fact the latex can be fatal if swallowed – try eating liquid rubber and you will discover why.

Trees in my Garden 3

11. Kentia Palm (Howea Forsteriana). A simple no nonsense old fashioned palm tree, that doesn’t really do anything except remind you of tropical beaches.

And here are its fruit.

12. Bombax (Chorisia Speciosa). The elderly king of trees in this garden. A mighty goliath from Brazil. Its long curvaceous trunk rises up into the sky, topped with a huge rounded crown way up in the canopy. It has big mauve-pink flowers with yellowish-white and pink into the middle. Its big oval woody capsuled fruit split open on the tree, revealing seeds embedded in fine white fibres, which yield cotton-like material, which is used for stuffing toys and cushions. An exciting tree!

13. Candelabra Euphorbia (Euphorbia Candelabrum). Posh name! A local tree, but from the savannah. It has a crown of big spiky succulent branches, kind of half tree half cactus. In traditional medicine part of it is given to women after childbirth to clear out the afterbirth. Ooowsh. This is done very carefully, because the soft branches also produce a sticky white latex that is extremely poisonous – a single drop in the eye can cause blindness, and will blister the skin of a cow. Its small yellow-green flowers attract bees, but the honey can’t be eaten as it irritates and burns the mouth. Beware this tree!

14: Green heart (Warburgia Ugandensis). A large evergreen, also called Pepper-bark tree. It’s got spicy leaves, which are sometimes used in curries as a chilli substitute. The resin can be used as glue, and the wood makes great timber for building things, but tends to get eaten by termites. As traditional medicine an infusion of bark and roots helps cure stomachache, toothache, fever, colds, malaria and general muscular pains. The bark, when powdered and taken in small quantities also helps deal with most of the above. The roots are also good for plugging diarrhoea (not literally), while another mix of the bark and leaves cures malaria (with the small side-effect of causing violent vomiting). It’s even got edible seeds – try some on your salad!

15. Avocado (Persia Americana). Tried to grow one of these in my bedroom as a kid – it never got bigger than about 50cm. There are a few in the garden and they can get up to 10m! They get lots of flowers but only 1 in 5000 turns into a fruit.

The fruit is full of protein and vitamins – we just had this one in our salad. Melted in the mouth.

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6. Mexican Ash (Fraxinus Pennsylvanica) . Yes, another Mexican one. Well muchachos, this is a big one with dark cracked bark. It’s not an exciting tree – good for general timber, posts and fuel. But you can depend on it to break (the) wind.

7. Trichilia (Trichilia Spp). Ever heard of this? AKA Cape Mahogany. Sound more familiar? These babies get big, although my one is quite young. They are great for all sorts of things. You can make soap out of the oil from the seeds. The timber is good for light indoor furniture, as well as poles posts and fuel. If you are a human its seeds could poison you, however if you are a baboon or other monkey you will love them! Plus, the oil treats cuts and bruises, the roots and bark are good for fevers, the leaves and fruit help ease bruises, cuts and eczema, and the seed oil relieves rheumatism. Also, the bark, roots and leaves are traditionally used for intestinal problems, plus dysentery, kidney problems, and parasite infestation. This is a useful tree! And it’s local!!

8. Jacaranda (Jacaranda Mimosifolia). Got a couple of these. At the right time of year its mauve-blue bell-shaped flowers come out in spectacular style – I’ll post when it happens. From Brazil originally but they are all over Africa these days. I’ve been to at least two African cities that call themselves the ‘purple city’ because of these trees, and I bet there are lots more.

9. Bastard Myrobalan (Terminalia Bellirica). Not a very nice name, but quite a nice tree, full of mysticism. It’s used to line avenues all over South East Asia because of its size and grandeur. Apparently its oil also has potential as a source of bio-diesel. Some tribes in India get high by smoking the kernels, and other bits of it are good as a laxative or for sore throats. Hindus also claim that the nuts of this true were used as dice in the Mahabharata, but they won’t sit under the tree as they believe it is full of demons!

10. Peacock Flower (Albizia Gummifera). A local tree, known as Mcani Mbao in Swahili. The bark can ease malaria, the pods cure stomach-ache, the roots are crushed for skin disease, the powdered bark makes a snuff for headaches, and the bark can also be made into an infusion for inflamation of the eyes. And the flowers – yes, they look like peacock feathers!  When the season’s right, I’ll show you.