By Liliana Usvat
Blog 181-365
If you want an eye-grabbing, evergreen ornamental plant for your landscape, the calabash tree (Crescentia cujete), known in Hawai'i as the la'amia, is your "lock" of the season
With its continually emerging flowers and subsequent fruit, the gourds that hang like Christmas ornaments, la'amia creates a focal point in the garden or as a riveting specimen near a deck or patio.
Rediscovering Traditional Medicine
Before modern medicine developed laboratory drugs, our ancestors, the world over used herbs and weeds for health. Using a combination of medicinal plants and prayers, shamans and healers treated both the physical and spiritual ailments of their communities.
Today the knowledge is all but lost; however, scientific communities from the western world have shown a new interest in the medicinal properties of tropical plants. For example, the National Cancer Institute started the Belize Ethnobotany Project, which has sent of 2,000 species back to the NCI to be studied for cancer fighting properties.
Calabash Tree
Calabash Tree can grow up to twenty five feet in height. The tree produces green coloured spherical fruits about twelve inches to sixteen inches in diameter. It has a woody shell and a pulpy inside. When dry it turns brownish and can be hollowed out to make receptacles, cups, bowls and ladles. Its pulp is believed to contain medicinal properties.
Native to subtropical and tropical regions of the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America and northern South America, la'amia probably have been cultivated for more than 600 years.
Relatively fast-growing, la'amia have a short, straight trunk with an open crown of contorted, horizontal or rising branches. They will grow at sea level, up to an altitude of about 2,300 feet. The four- to six-inch-long elliptical leaves are bright green and create a moderate shade cover.
Medicinal Uses
There are abundant traditional and historical medicinal applications of the fruit juice.
In Haiti and St. Lucia, it is used to treat inflammation, trauma and diarrhea. It's a purgative in Costa Rica. In Venezuela, it is used to treat tumors and hematomas.
Other Uses
The shells are often used as bowls, musical instruments or carved by artisans into interesting artifacts.
Carib Indians of Dominica would carve intricate designs into the woody gourds during the fruit's softer green phase. When dry, the la'amia gourds were permanently etched with these ornate motifs.
The Taino also turned the gourds into two rhythm instruments — maracas and the guiro. Maracas were fashioned from small oval gourds with pebbles or hard seeds such as rosary peas inside. In Hawai'i, the body of the modern 'uli'uli is customized from the la'amia gourd. Seeds of the introduced yellow or red flowered canna lily, ali'ipoe, are used to produce the rattling sound.
History
The calabash was one of the first cultivated plants in the world, grown not for food, but as containers.
The calabash or bottle gourds are a type of vegetable that grows on a tree or vine introduced to the Bahamas by its first settlers.
These people originally of Asiatic descent, known as "Lucayans" in the Bahamas, spooned out the soft flesh from the inside of this vegetable, which left behind the hard rind. This rind became their water bottles during hunting and canoeing trips and bowls for food. Amerindians, Africans and Asians have used bottle gourds not only for food and utilitarian purposes, but also as medicine bottles, drums, flutes, stringed instruments and pipes.
Precisely because of its wide diversity globally and being local to the Bahamas, the name Calabash now represents the diversity in our Eco Adventures such as biking, snorkeling, diving, kayaking, birding and hiking.
Good for Reforestation and Parks Design
La'amia have a deep root system and are resistant to drought. No pests or major diseases are of major concern, but Chinese rose beetles and a leaf-webbing caterpillar occasionally will be bothersome.
Blog 181-365
If you want an eye-grabbing, evergreen ornamental plant for your landscape, the calabash tree (Crescentia cujete), known in Hawai'i as the la'amia, is your "lock" of the season
With its continually emerging flowers and subsequent fruit, the gourds that hang like Christmas ornaments, la'amia creates a focal point in the garden or as a riveting specimen near a deck or patio.
Rediscovering Traditional Medicine
Before modern medicine developed laboratory drugs, our ancestors, the world over used herbs and weeds for health. Using a combination of medicinal plants and prayers, shamans and healers treated both the physical and spiritual ailments of their communities.
Today the knowledge is all but lost; however, scientific communities from the western world have shown a new interest in the medicinal properties of tropical plants. For example, the National Cancer Institute started the Belize Ethnobotany Project, which has sent of 2,000 species back to the NCI to be studied for cancer fighting properties.
Calabash Tree
Calabash Tree can grow up to twenty five feet in height. The tree produces green coloured spherical fruits about twelve inches to sixteen inches in diameter. It has a woody shell and a pulpy inside. When dry it turns brownish and can be hollowed out to make receptacles, cups, bowls and ladles. Its pulp is believed to contain medicinal properties.
Native to subtropical and tropical regions of the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America and northern South America, la'amia probably have been cultivated for more than 600 years.
Relatively fast-growing, la'amia have a short, straight trunk with an open crown of contorted, horizontal or rising branches. They will grow at sea level, up to an altitude of about 2,300 feet. The four- to six-inch-long elliptical leaves are bright green and create a moderate shade cover.
Medicinal Uses
There are abundant traditional and historical medicinal applications of the fruit juice.
In Haiti and St. Lucia, it is used to treat inflammation, trauma and diarrhea. It's a purgative in Costa Rica. In Venezuela, it is used to treat tumors and hematomas.
It is said that the fruit of the Calabash Tree when roasted is a good treatment for
menstrual cramps or to induced childbirth and that the leaf can be used in tea to treat
colds, diarrhea, dysentery and headaches.
In Suriname's traditional medicine, the fruit pulp is used for respiratory problems such as asthma.
Medical Researchers have found out that the seed has been effective as an abortive and the fruit pulp can be used to force menses, birth and afterbirth. Scientists also recommend that it is best not to use this plant while pregnant.
In Suriname's traditional medicine, the fruit pulp is used for respiratory problems such as asthma.
Medical Researchers have found out that the seed has been effective as an abortive and the fruit pulp can be used to force menses, birth and afterbirth. Scientists also recommend that it is best not to use this plant while pregnant.
Other Uses
The shells are often used as bowls, musical instruments or carved by artisans into interesting artifacts.
Carib Indians of Dominica would carve intricate designs into the woody gourds during the fruit's softer green phase. When dry, the la'amia gourds were permanently etched with these ornate motifs.
The Taino also turned the gourds into two rhythm instruments — maracas and the guiro. Maracas were fashioned from small oval gourds with pebbles or hard seeds such as rosary peas inside. In Hawai'i, the body of the modern 'uli'uli is customized from the la'amia gourd. Seeds of the introduced yellow or red flowered canna lily, ali'ipoe, are used to produce the rattling sound.
History
The calabash was one of the first cultivated plants in the world, grown not for food, but as containers.
The calabash or bottle gourds are a type of vegetable that grows on a tree or vine introduced to the Bahamas by its first settlers.
These people originally of Asiatic descent, known as "Lucayans" in the Bahamas, spooned out the soft flesh from the inside of this vegetable, which left behind the hard rind. This rind became their water bottles during hunting and canoeing trips and bowls for food. Amerindians, Africans and Asians have used bottle gourds not only for food and utilitarian purposes, but also as medicine bottles, drums, flutes, stringed instruments and pipes.
Precisely because of its wide diversity globally and being local to the Bahamas, the name Calabash now represents the diversity in our Eco Adventures such as biking, snorkeling, diving, kayaking, birding and hiking.
Good for Reforestation and Parks Design
La'amia have a deep root system and are resistant to drought. No pests or major diseases are of major concern, but Chinese rose beetles and a leaf-webbing caterpillar occasionally will be bothersome.
