–A tree few would dare harm
THE Silk Cotton tree (Ceiba pentandra) is one of the largest trees in the American tropics. It can grow to a height exceeding 200 feet, and towers over the other trees in the rainforest. Its straight trunk is cylindrical, smooth and gray in colour, and can reach a diameter of nine feet. Thin, plank-type buttresses that can extend to 30 feet stabilize this giant in the earth.

Its branches grow in horizontal tiers and spread widely, with the crown, the diameter of which can be as much as 140 feet, having an open umbrella shape, making it an excellent shade tree for those brave enough to loiter under it.

Flowers, usually clustered on small new branches, open before leaves appear, emanating an unpleasant odour to likely attract bats that pollinate them. The brown seeds of the Silk Cotton Tree are round like peas, and are found in pods that are woody, smooth and pendulous, with a light green colour; and these pods burst open while still on the tree, after the leaves have fallen, to reveal a whitish, cotton-like fibre surrounding the brown seeds, which carries them away by the wind for many miles.

The tree gets its common name from these fibres, which rain from the tree when the fruits have ripened.

The untouchable
Animists are people who believe there is a spirit or a soul residing in every object, including in certain trees.

Not all Guyanese are animists, but few non-animists amongst us would deny harbouring an inexplicable fear or dread of the Silk Cotton Tree.

For many Guyanese, Ceiba petandra is the original ‘Jumbie Tree’, and is to be studiously avoided, especially after dark.

Animists think that cutting down a Silk Cotton Tree is not a good idea, since the spirit that dwells in that tree would seek out the tree cutter and punish him with death within seventy-two hours of his destruction of that spirit’s abode.

Silk Cotton Trees are consequently left untouched, even in areas where they pose inconvenience to planning new roadways, or undertaking irrigation or drainage excavation works. The Silk Cotton Tree, therefore, enjoys a protection facilitated by its reputation as a haven for resident spirits which should not be offended under any circumstance.

To this very day, you are unlikely to find any Guyanese who would cut down a Silk Cotton Tree, although persons may dismiss stories of resident spirits as mere superstition. Hence, most Silk Cotton Trees crash to the ground in death after reaching a ripe old age.

Commands respect
The dread of this tree is not confined to Guyanese, but exists among peoples throughout the Caribbean and South America.

This is a story about a silk cotton tree in Trinidad:
A man named Charlie Lastigue was coming home on his bike one night, and as he was passing by that tree, he heard a baby crying. He went to look, because he was curious, and there was a little black baby lying naked in the grass under the tree.

He picked up the baby to take it home to show his wife, and the next day, take it to the orphanage or the hospital.

He got back on his bicycle and resumed his travel, but by the time he had reached halfway where he was going, the baby was so heavy he could hardly pedal; and when he reached the corner of Belmont Circular Road by the hospital, the baby had grown and was even heavier.

When he reached further, the baby said to him in a man’s voice with a Bajan accent, ‘Look here! You better put me back where you found me!’ So he turned around and pedalled back, the baby growing lighter and lighter as he went; and as he bent to put down the baby where he had found it under the Silk Cotton Tree, a cloud covered the moon and a huge bird — Charlie said it was the biggest bird he’d ever seen — flew out of the tree directly into the cemetery in the middle of the Savannah.
To be continued next week…