![]() Leaving these intact will allow the tree to have a more natural and open form. Ideally, you should steer clear from pruning any of the tree’s lower limbs. Keep an eye out for any shoots that are becoming congested or are beginning to cross and remove them. This is the period when pruning causes the least damage to the plant. Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.The best time to prune Gumbo-limbo is between late winter to early spring. Gumbo-limbo bark is an antidote to ''Metopium toxiferum'', also known as chechen tree, which often grows in the same habitat and can cause extreme rashes just as the related poison ivy. Hexane extracts of the leaves have been shown to possess anti-inflammatory properties in animal tests. The resin is used as a treatment for gout, while the leaves are brewed into a medicinal tea. Gumbo-limbo's rapid growth, ease and low cost of propagation, and ecological versatility makes it highly recommended as a "starter" tree in reforestation, even of degraded habitat, and it performs much better overall in such a role than most exotic species. Given the eagerness with which some birds seek out the arils, it may be that they contain lipids or other compounds useful to humans in order for these to be exploited, however, they would probably have to be synthetically produced, because although the crop of a single tree can be very large, individual seeds are small and cumbersome to harvest. This creates the opportunity to attract such species to residential areas for bird watching, and to reduce the competition for gumbo-limbo seeds in an undisturbed habitat which rarer local resident birds might face. Many migrant species will utilize gumbo-limbo trees that are in human-modified habitat, even in settlements. ![]() It is an especially important local food source for vireos such the red-eyed vireo when ripe fruit are abundant. ![]() Local residents such as the masked tityra, bright-rumped attila, black-faced grosbeak and, in Hispaniola, palmchat, are particularly fond of gumbo-limbo fruit, as are migrants like the Baltimore oriole or the dusky-capped flycatcher. The arils are an important source of food for birds, including many winter migrants from North America. It is rather brittle, though the trunk is used in Haiti to make drums and as firewood, and the tree's resin, called chibou, cachibou or gomartis, is used as glue, varnish and incense. Gumbo-limbo wood is suitable for light construction. However, it has been noted in Central America that posts do not produce a tap root, only side roots, thus questioning the real value of wind protection as such fence posts would not be as sturdy as a true, naturally occurring sapling. They may be planted to serve as wind protection of crops and roads, or as living fence posts, and if simply stuck into good soil, small branches will readily root and grow into sizeable trees in a few years. Gumbo-limbo is also considered one of the most wind-tolerant trees, and it is recommended as a rugged, hurricane-resistant species in South Florida. It grows rapidly and is well adapted to several kinds of habitats, which include salty and calcareous soils. Gumbo-limbo is a very useful plant economically and ecologically. Birds also seek out the fruit to feed on the aril, which, though small, is rich in lipids. Ripe capsules dehisce or are cracked open by birds. Both ripe and unripe fruits are borne quite loosely on their stems and can spontaneously detach if the tree is shaken. ![]() The fruit is a small three-valved capsule encasing a single seed which is covered in a red fatty aril of 5–6 mm diameter. The tree yields some ripe fruit year-round, but the main fruiting season is March and April in the northern part of the plant's range. The gumbo-limbo is comically referred to as the tourist tree because the tree's bark is red and peeling, like the skin of sunburnt tourists, who are a common sight in the plant's range. The bark is shiny dark red, and the leaves are spirally arranged and pinnate with 7-11 leaflets, each leaflet broad ovate, 4–10 cm long and 2–5 cm broad. ''Bursera simaruba'' is a small to medium-sized tree growing to 30 meters tall, with a diameter of one meter or less at 1.5 meters above ground.
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