Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day - a peaceful day to honor a peaceful messenger.
The Como Conservatory Holiday Flower Show is still on and looking gorgeous with hundreds of poinsettias! This show closes tomorrow, so I hope you've had a chance to see and take a few photos of this dazzling display of red!
Everything was quiet on my entry into the North Garden. I could instantly see that the North Garden conservatory was brighter than it has been for awhile. Walking around, I found the reasons why.
First, the massive fig tree (Ficus carica - the common fig) has been pruned using a pollarding process. In this process, the leaves and major branches are cut back close to the main stems. This encourages new growth closer down to the main stem. This technique is used to prune trees that need to be kept short for some reason (like long-term growth in a greenhouse) or to prune trees away from areas (like from power lines or roof gutters).
The fig tree must have recently been pruned because all of its' leaves were missing. Not to worry, though - new leaf growth will start showing soon.
In addition to the ficus pollarding, I could tell that many other plants had been pruned in some way. Walking around, I found that the big leaf mahogany tree (Swietenia macrophylla) had been removed. This removal has allowed a great deal of light to filter into the area that it occupied.
I was excited to find new fruits on the jackfruit (Arctocarpus heterophyllus), the Mandarin lime tree (Citrus x limonia), the papaya (Carica papaya - look up into the papaya plant to see the growing papayas) and the Tahitian gooseberry (Phyllanthus acidus).
The cacao pods are still growing on the chocolate tree (Theobroma cacao). Now that the pods are getting big, other pods in the upper part of the tree are easier to distinguish from the leaves.
The plant of the day is the Bodhi (or Bo) tree (Ficus religiosa). Native to Asia, these trees are popular ornamental trees in warmer climates and can also be grown as bonsai trees. Siddhartha Gautama was said to be meditating beneath a bodhi tree when he became enlightened (and then became known as Buddha).
In addition to spiritual connections, this tree has additional socioeconomic uses. Many parts of the tree have been used for medicinal purposes like inflammation, infectious disorders, asthma, diarrhea and epilepsy.
The association of this tree with peace and tolerance makes this the perfect plant of the day on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
Peace to all.
Additional Information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhi_tree
http://wisdom-tree.com/
http://www.ebudhaindia.com/holy_sites/bodhi_tree.htm
http://www.ehow.com/info_8192341_bodhi-tree.html
http://www.bodhitree-cambridge.com/
Damanpreet Singh, Bikram Singh, Rajesh Kumar Goel, Traditional uses, phytochemistry and pharmacology of Ficus religiosa: A review, Journal of Ethnopharmacology, Volume 134, Issue 3, 12 April 2011, Pages 565-583.
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