Re: Sabor tree?
- To: , ,
- Subject: Re: Sabor tree?
- From: D* M*
- Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2000 22:46:53 -0800
on 2/3/00 8:42 PM, Nan Sterman at nsterman@mindsovermatter.com wrote:
> My folks just returned from South America and my mother was taken by a
> red-flowered tree that she thinks is called "sabor" or "sabol." Anyone
> familiar with this tree and know its botanical name?
It's a ceibo tree--the national tree of Argentina. When I was in South
America in November, it was in full bloom, a big 20m tall tree with a broad
round crown covered in red flowers. A common English name would be coral
tree. A picture of the tree can be seen at
http://www.marmot.net/danm/adv/cl99/img/99-50-14.jpg. The ceibo trees are
the two trees in the background. This picture is from November 14, 1999.
The ceibo is planted widely in central Chile, such as in Santiago. I was
surprised to see such an unknown tree planted in such a similar climate,
especially as I recognized most of the other street and park trees such as
jacaranda and liquidambar and the various sycamores (London planetrees).
Of course, once I got back to California, I wondered why I hadn't seen the
ceibo tree here. Turns out I had--the species name is Erythrina
crista-galli, and it grows here mostly as a shrub or really small tree. I
wonder why it doesn't get to towering tree height like it does in South
America--anyone got any clues?
One idea of mine about why the ceibo doesn't grow that large here is that
trees don't grow as large in California as they do in Chile. In general, I
found the same tree species growing in Chile to be much more narrow and tall
than the same species growing in California. Notable trees in this regard
were Pinus radiata (Monterey Pine), Maytenus boaria (mayten), and Schinus
molle (pepper tree). You can see the very tall radiata pines in the back of
the picture at the link above.
The only real exception I to this taller-in-Chile rule was ironically a
coast redwood (sequoia sempervirens) in a botanical garden in Valdivia. It
was short and squat--but with massive limbs that made it more wide than
tall!
Dan
