English Name: Cannon ball tree
Malayalam Name: നാഗലിംഗമരം
Botanical Name: Couroupita guianensis Aubl.
Family: Lecythidaceae
Flowering & Fruiting: January-October
Description: Couroupita guianensis or cannonball tree,, is a soft-wooded, deciduous tropical tree of the Brazil nut family that normally reaches a mature height of 50 to 75 feet (rarely 100 feet). However, it has been widely planted in a variety of tropical to semi-tropical regions all over the world. It is predominantly native to rainforests in the Guianas (French Guiana, Suriname, and Guyana) in northeastern South America. The tree’s odd, bordering-on-bizarre, woody, globose, hard-shelled, reddish-brown fruits, which mature to a cannonball size of 8–10” in diameter, are the source of the common name. On windy days, the fruits frequently crash against one another on the tree, allegedly making a cannonade-like sound. Each fruit has 200–300 seeds inside of a mushy, foul-smelling red pulp that turns bluish-green when it comes into contact with the air. Usually, it takes a fruit at least a year to mature. Fruits fall off the tree when they are ripe and typically break open as they land with an explosive splat.
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