Image of Carob Tree

Description:

Slo.: roievec - Habitat: Semiruderal place, dirt road and yard side, almost flat terrain; skeletal ground, full sun, dry place; elevation 37 m (120 feet); average precipitations about 700 mm/year, average temperature about 18 deg C, Mediterranean phytogeographical region. Substratum: soil. Comment: Ceratonia siliqua origins in Middle East region. It was introduced to almost whole Mediterranean millennia ago (albeit not in Slovenia) and is already naturalized, planted commercially for its fruits (pods) and wood and often for ornament in the parks. Once it was an important cultivated plant broadly used as food for (poor) men and stock. Some high quality sorts may have up to 30 cm long, sweet, aromatic pods. When I was a boy these pods were obviously among St. Nicolas' presents. For quite a long time the importance of this tree is in sharp decline. The plantations of high quality cultivars on some East Adriatic Sea island are abandoned and the fruits stay lying on ground. The species has a unique property. Black and hard seeds in the pods have very small variability of their weight. All of them are surprisingly even-sized. They were used as weights in gold trade in Antique. The weight of a single seed was named one 'carat', a weight unit still used today. The pictures show unripe, green pods. When they are ripe they become longer and dark brown. The flowers of the species are rather inconspicuous. Ref.: (1) I. Schnfelder, P. Schnfelder, Kosmos Atlas Mittelmeer- und Kanarenflora, Kosmos, (2002), p 72. (2) M. Blamey, C. Grey-Wilson, Wild Flowers of the Mediterranean, A & C Black, London (2005), p 78. (3) R. Domac, Flora Hrvatske (Flora of Croatia) (in Croatian), kolska Knjiga, Zagreb (1994), p 184. (4) R. Brus, Drevesa in grmi Jadrana (Trees and shrubs of Adria) (in Slovene), Modrijan Pub, (2012), p 259.