Download 2010 Edition - Tropical Magazine

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LA NATURE A DU TALENT NATURALLy TALENTED
44 www.hello-stbarth.com/tropical-magazine/
Some trees are fairly common, such as the white, red or grey mapou, not
very popular because they generate a lot of dust; red or white gommier or
gum tree, from which the Carib Indians on Dominica continue to make their
dugouts; “poirier pays” or tropical pear tree, which bears no fruit but has
lovely flowers. The poirier pays is often planted in hedge rows.
There is also the “bois l’huile” (literally: oil wood), a small plant people used
to polish their floors and crockery with, and Aloe vera, a medicinal plant used
in treating sunburn and other burns, speeding up cicatrization and which is
also an ingredient in some commercial shampoos.
The genip or Spanish lime is a local fruit tree whose grapes of “quenettes”
are harvested during July and August. The yellowish fruit surrounding the
bean somewhat resembles litchi in taste. Sea raisins, whose trees grow on
the beach, are small, slightly acid fruit when not fully ripe.
The corossol or soursop is both sweet and sour and makes delicious juice and
icecream. Soursap leaf tea is recommended as a bedtime tea.
All in all, at least 17
species of St. Barth are now
protected by ministerial decree.
Raisin de mer Noix de cajou Sortie nature avec Félix Lurel, botaniste
et Hélène Bernier
Speaking of fruit, you should try the custard apple with its cluster of beans
covered with cinnamon-flavored flesh, guava and cashew, sapodilla, island
cherries, zicacs … and that’s just for starters!
St. Barth is very much a dry forest, which is what we call an ecosystem
where plantlife has adapted to the scarcity of water. It is very fragile and
we should take care not to destroy certain species because dry forests
take many generations to reform and for plants and trees to reach their
adult stage.