The Canonball Tree
Often your expectations of another country aren’t quite matched by the reality when you finally arrive. It’s like that classic story you hear about the disappointed tourist asking the taxi driver in Sydney where all the kangaroos are hiding. Turns out most cities have the same ugly buildings around the airport, the same traffic jams and the same billboards advertising Coke and McDonald’s. Reality can be underwhelming can’t it?
I was surprised how many people I asked didn’t know what purpose these cable things served. It turns out they are used to regulate pressure and alert the driver when a tyre deflates
Soon after I arrived in Rio I noticed some very weird trees growing on the street near my work. When I got home I asked my girlfriend what they were called. I described them as big trees with loads of bunches of cannonballs growing from the trunk. Her (perfectly justified) response “what’s a cannonball?”. I tried again, describing what to me are very distinctive trees – they have loads and loads of large balls of wooden appearance growing directly out of the trunk – surely she must have noticed these?
 |
| You know, the tree with all the cannonballs hanging off it… |
I suppose things that you see every day become invisible. To me these things are pretty memorable. First they have huge numbers of large, colourful flowers growing directly from the tree trunk. These later develop into cannonball-like brown fruit which fall down and break open on whatever they hit (hopefully not your car or head).
 |
| Pretty flowers right? Just beware of the deadly fruit that appear a few months later. |
Now I like these trees – the flowers are spectacular and the I think it’s weird (in a good way) how they grow straight out of the trunk like that. But who in the town planning department decided it would be a good idea to plant these in streets full of pedestrians and parked cars? The fruit weigh as much as 3kg, so you really don’t want them falling on your head. And almost every car that has been foolishly parked under one of these trees has a few dents to show for it. Even the entry in Wikipedia advises:
 |
| Look out below! |
Has anyone ever been injured by one of these falling fruit? Surely it must have happened? Watch your back (and head) in Rio de Janeiro – if the drug violence, corrupt cops and Dengue Fever don’t get you, perhaps a falling cannonball fruit will.
There is something very LSDee-ish about flowers growing out of a trunk wouldn't you say?
Regarding the unwise decision of planting those Cannonball Trees all over town I choose, just for today, not to dwell over the utter stupidity of it all prefering to engage in fictional freudenschade by imagining John Cleese's character from Clockwork spending a week in Rio, or anywhere in Latin America for that matter.
Heh heh, it's because of people like him that they say 'Tempo Britânico'…
I know what a cannonball is! And I knew what it was before this little conversation happened. Just wanted to make that clear to everyone. I admit I didn't know what a Cannonball tree was. I've always know the Cannonball fruit as "fruta pão".
Thought this could be of interest.
http://www.internations.org/
It is pretty useful for networking and even socializing (the introduction may come off a bit pretentious but that doesn't really hold up in practice).
Tom,
The thing is, these trees were planted before there were cars, most of them over 100 years ago.
So, cars came later.
The name is "Abrico de Macaco", it's typical in Rio. Originally from the Amazon Region. Not found in any city south of Rio. Not in Sao Paulo for example.
Belem do Para is even worse. They have gigantic MANGO trees all over the city that very often drop some heavy sweet juicy and very messy LARGE MANGOS on top of cars and people.
The city of Belem has crews of city workers harvesting these MANGOS year round, but sometimes they miss a few here and there. Yes, you can easily grab a gigantic sweet and juicy MANGO anywhere in Belem. :)
By the way, those favelas in Rio, on the way to the Airport, have it's days counted. They are removing most of it and building a HUGE wall on the remaining pieces of slum that won't be able to be removed. I am sure the smell will disapear as well.
Ray
Ray,
There were people a hundred years ago and these cannonball fruits (fruta pão) can fall on them as well. Don't you think it was a bad idea to plant these things in the first place? Will it take the hundreth aniversity of the first car to ever have been used in Rio to finally cut these things down? BTW these things happen up to this day and the culprits are both government and citizens since neither seem to have caught on to the simple fact that a bit, just a tad bit, of research is needed before planting ( root characteristics, resulting fruit and their properties, present and future hydraulic and eletrical instalations, etc). Every year property is damaged because of these trees and once in a while someone actually dies. You even find poorly chosen and idiotically placed trees in a place like Brasília. Some planted as late as the seventies.
I think is about time to stop with the excuses, admit the mistakes, to then fiz each situation.
After some 'discussion' on the subject I would like to correct my earlier assertion that Manuela didn't know what a cannonball was/is. She *definitely* did (and I'm an idiot). Just wanted to clear that up…
Ray, fair point – the trees were there first and I know that even 100 years ago, Rio was *far* less densely developed. Maybe some of the streets I see now were more like open gardens/fields. Still, I'm kind of surprised that they've allowed these trees to stay – personally I actually quite like them (they look like something out of star trek to me) but I would expect car owners to have protested them into firewood by now!
Gritty, is that true about people actually dying from them? I kind of suspected that they must knock the odd person off, being that they are so widespread and have so many of those big fruit hanging so pendulously, but I hadn't actually heard of a case. I'm sure my casual curiosity on the subject would be transformed into something stronger if someone I knew was hurt/killed by one of these.
This is interesting and useful.
http://dendrolab.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/arvores-susceptiveis-a-queda-e-que-devem-ser-evitadas-na-arborizacao-urbana/
Fruit related casualities I have not read about. Trees or large branches causing faltalities happen all the time. In most cases the trees should not have been there or the contruction which followed the tree did not take into account the sustainability of the surrounding environment and seriously weakened the tree over time. One of the most common mistakes, at least the ones I have read about, involve the Eucalyptus tree since it grows quite fast ( the roots on the other hand are feeble in comparison to the tree as a whole). Guess what happens when a little wind comes around.
"It's not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand."
-Brian Stimpson