Plus

Plus

Trees I have known
Where are the trees we grew up with? Can we move forward without them?
By Dr. Sriyanie Miththapala
"Land Ahoy!" roars Blackbeard the Pirate as the ship tosses violently. "Man overboard!" shouts his sidekick. They both watch as a pirate clings grimly to the side, shaking with the unrelenting tossing. The pirate finally falls overboard.

The storm stops suddenly. My brother, aka Blackbeard the Pirate, and my cousin, his sidekick, comfortably settle themselves among the branches of the tree they are on, while the pirate who fell off (another cousin) picks herself off the ground, dusts herself and climbs back on the tree again. She and I climb higher. We all reach out to pick ourselves guavas, lie back in the forks of branches and munch lazily in the hot afternoon.

Shelter from the storm
The 'ship' was a guava tree in our garden. Branching almost at it base, the tree had a peculiar shape, like a lopsided 'v': one branch reached vertically upward, while the other main branch veered sharply, almost parallel to the ground. The smooth branches, dense foliage and luscious pink-centred fruits allowed us to sate our appetites and let our imaginations run wild on hot and humid afternoons.

Our 'game' which my brother (now aged 51) is embarrassed to recall, was to pretend that we were pirates standing on the deck of a ship (the horizontal branch of the guava tree) caught in the middle of a storm (created by my brother and cousin, who would jump up and down and rock the supple branches). The game ended when a pirate (usually another cousin or I) fell overboard (i.e., fell off the tree).

The guava tree has been cultivated by humans for so long that no one knows for certain where it originated. However, it is believed that the area of origin is somewhere in Central America. Spanish and Portuguese explorers took this species with them to their colonies in the east. Because humans and animals easily dispersed its seeds, this species easily established itself in the tropics, and became a crop plant in Africa and Asia. It is reported that in India, guava cultivation extends for an estimated 125,327 acres (50,720 ha), which yield an annual crop of 27,319 tons of fruit.

In Sri Lanka, guava trees are common in home gardens of the wet lowlands and highlands. Guava trees are identified easily because of their light brown bark which flakes off, leaving a smooth greenish layer underneath. Their oval-shaped leaves have a characteristic smell when crushed. However, it is the pink or white-centred, succulent fruits of this species that make this tree popular.

The place of refuge
Also in our garden were several Araliya trees of different coloured blooms. One particular tree - with powerfully scented, large white flowers - provided a safe and comfortable hiding spot whenever I wanted to read undisturbed as a child. Its elbow-shaped branches made for easy hand and footholds as I often hastily clambered up to avoid doing chores for my mother. I spent many hours hidden up there transported to Kirrin Island or to Gerald Durrell's Corfu.

To this day, the scent of the flowers takes me back to my childhood. Plumeria obtusia was introduced from South America. Charles Plumier, the French botanist, named this tree after himself, while Muzio Frangipani used the essence from flowers to make perfume. Hence, its other derived common name, Frangipani. There are many different varieties but their flowers are always showy, with waxy petals and most often, are scented heavily. The timber is too soft for construction; therefore it has no commercial value. In Sri Lanka, the flowers are used as temple offerings and for decorative purposes, so these trees are also called Temple Trees.

Another Temple Tree, in a peculiar sigmoidal shape, served as a counter for our kade. Nooks and crannies shaped by knots and calluses on the tree formed perfect tills and display plates as I sold madatiya seeds, Tridax flowers and assorted leaves to my customer (my cousin).

Weapons of mass discomfort
In a different climate at a holiday home in the hills of Diyatalawa, I remember a splendid African Tulip Tree, Kudalu Gaha, often erroneously called the Flame of the Forest.

Another import - this time from Africa - its dark green leaves, spreading foliage and fluted trunk, make it handsome enough as a tree, but it is the scarlet inflorescences with sickle-shaped buds that make this species a spectacular sight in the wet and mid low country.

In Sri Lanka, this tree has no value except as ornamental, although in its native land the wood from these trees is used to make drums. For me, as a child, the value of the African Tulip Tree was as a very effective weapon. During games of cops and robbers, I remember how well these fleshy flowers became excellent water pistols as I pinched off the top, aimed a flower at my opponent, squeezed and watched gleefully as sap squirted out in a perfect arc.

Food for the hungry
Most trees bear fruit and many fruits are edible. Always far more willing to pop something I plucked from a tree into my mouth, than something my mother wanted to feed me, I would search keenly for trees bearing edible fruits.

The tall tamarind tree that stood in a relative's sprawling garden in Thellipalai was always laden with brown, velvety, sausage-shaped pods and populated with grey langurs, who fed on them. With its very dark brown trunk, dull green and feathery leaves, it was instantly recognizable, because of these pods. Split open, they yielded a very tart pulp, which, tastes marvellous to a child.

Tamarind trees are found commonly in the dry and intermediate zones, and the pulp of its fruits is used as flavouring in Sri Lankan cookery. The pulp, leaves, bark and flowers are also used for medicinal purposes. Indian singers traditionally eat the raw pulp to improve their voices. The tree itself is an excellent shade provider, and ecologically, is an important food tree for frugivores such as the grey langurs.

All encompassing branches
The spreading Jam fruit tree in our garden - another tree bearing edible fruit - provided a haven for birds and squirrels. Also called the Jamaican or Singapore Cherry, this is another species introduced from tropical America, which has now become widely naturalized in tropical countries because it is a pioneer species in disturbed areas, and grows well in urban habitats. Jam fruit trees provide excellent shade with their dense, layered foliage.

In urban habitats, Jam fruit trees serve an important function as they attract fruit eating birds and small mammals. I recommend that if parents want to inculcate a love of birds in their children, they should grow a Jam fruit tree in their garden. As a child, however, bird watching on the Jam fruit tree was not on my agenda. My aim was to spot and eat the ripening, tiny, pink fruits before the birds did. My second and more important goal was to swarm up the tree onto the roof, which was, of course, Mount Everest.

There was just enough of a gap between the last branch sturdy enough to bear the weight of a ten-year-old and the edge of the roof to make the climb adventurous with a frisson of danger. I would teeter forward off the branch and land with a thump on the roof. My mother often complained about faulty gutters (where my feet had wreaked havoc) and leaks in the roof (where I cracked the tiles by landing on them). She never stopped me, although she must have known that Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Everest almost every day in the afternoons while she napped.

Bounty of the gods
Two mango trees in a garden much later in my life bore many more prized fruits than the Jam fruit tree. Especially the budded varieties of Karuththa kolomban and Ambalavi, which were carried to Colombo with much love and care from Jaffna by Blackbeard's sidekick. Our family watched with amazement as they grew speedily and bore fruit when they were just six feet tall. And what fruits they were, God's nectar packaged as succulent, orange-red fruits! At first, we could just reach up and pluck these fruits but later, as the trees reached their peak growth and production, we would swarm up the trunks to pluck the fruits. My mother would carefully place them on jute bags - ten, twenty, fifty, hundred, two hundred, three hundred - an embarrassment of riches in the heart of Colombo.

It is said that this species, which is indigenous to North India, has been cultivated for over 4000 years, and not surprisingly, it is reported that there are over 1000 varieties of mangoes. In Sri Lanka itself, there are the Jaffna varieties, the tiny beti amba, the huge pol amba, the fibrous kohu amba, gira amba, dampara, mi amba and puhu amba.

Hindus regard this tree as sacred and use its leaves to decorate houses for religious and festive occasions. In their heyday, our mango trees not only gave us an annual harvest of fruits but were also beautiful ornamentals when they were in full bloom, with their tiny, pale cream inflorescences that looked like lacy edges at the tips of branches. Their trunks housed many orchids and epiphytic night-blooming cacti, while many squirrels, brown-headed barbets, purple sunbirds, flocks of babblers, red vented bulbuls and red-backed woodpeckers ran, hopped and flew among the branches.

As the trees aged, sadly their magical productivity decreased: three hundred, two hundred, one hundred, fifty, thirty, twenty, ten and then there was just one lone fruit in a season. Each year, as the harvest decreased, so did the trees diminish, as more and more leaves fell off, and branch by branch dried and fell off, until only the tree trunks were left. Five years ago, one trunk disintegrated into a pile of flakes and dust after a bad thunderstorm, but the other still stands tenuously, still housing a lone stag horn fern.

Vanishing acts
When I now sit on our verandah and watch the slow decay of that single mango trunk - visible signs of my own inexorable march toward old age - I recall with warmth the trees of my childhood. In those halcyon days, trees allowed us to let our imaginations run wild as we played, they gave us an endless supply of food, provided comfortable hidey holes, taught us about the birds and animals that lived in them, and instilled in us a lifelong love of their beauty and place in nature.

As a teenager, I learned that trees are essential for the amelioration of the climate, for protecting the soil, for preventing surface water run off and for providing habitats for countless little creatures and birds to live. When I read about the great destruction of our planet's forests and look around to see trees being cut down at such an alarming rate to make way for roads and buildings, I am frightened for our future. It is said that while you read the above paragraph and this, approximately 149 acres of rainforest were destroyed somewhere in the world and that within the next hour approximately six species will become extinct.

That most of the trees of my childhood have long since been cut down for 'development' sharpens my fears. When I travel to the midlands in Deniyaya and see trees being cut down on roadsides at most bends of the road, watch helplessly as truckloads of timber are taken away, when I see hills once verdant with trees now scarred and barren, I agonize about our future in Sri Lanka. While I was away from Sri Lanka, I read about the floods that ravaged the south earlier this year and left 350,000 homeless, 300 dead and hundreds missing. I wondered if those who suffered this devastation, as well as politicians and policy makers, realized that countless axes on countless trees, which left hillsides exposed to the mercy of the elements, contributed to the floods and landslides that occurred.

When I see the children and teenagers of today, surrounded by today's technology that provides manufactured toys of every shape and see them confined indoors by choice or by chance, my fears quadruple. How many of our teenagers today know what it is to swarm up a tree to escape being caught in a game, or to search for fruit in trees because they are hungry (and not reach for snacks in the fridge)? How many of them use trees as props for their games instead of turning to their game boys and computers to provide them with readymade fantasies? How many of them can identify the trees in their gardens and on roadsides? How many of them know of the services that trees provide us? How many of them know that all life on earth is dependent on green plants?

How will our children value trees without experiencing the delights that they provide?
If our children don't value trees, how will they ensure that these tall sentinels are conserved for their future?

Back to Plus