The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1956, Page 30

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Summer 1956
leaves but the leaves are thicker and
have a grayish-green down on the
underside. The Swamp Immortelle
grows to a height of only about thirty
or forty feet but spreads much wider
than the Mountain Immortelle. This
is as if it had been ordered. At sea level
the temperature is much higher than
on the slopes of the hills and more
shade is required. In Trinidad the
Swamp Immortelle is locally called the
“water mamma”.
Another shade tiee, the Samanea
Saman, has a legend about it but it
is different from that of the Immor-
moisture from the air during the day
and transpire a certain amount of it
at night). People discovered long ago
that everything grows under a Saman
tree just about as well and in some
cases better than in the open. The na-
tives gave these facts their own inter-
pretation and came to the conclusion
that the damp blankets and the un-
usual fertility of the soil under the
branches of the Saman tree could only
mean either that raindrops filtered
from the branches during the night
or that water from the leaves made its
way down the tree during the night
An old Saman tree in Trinidad, west of Government House, in the central part of the city. In
one direction it spreads its branches one hundred and eighty-seven feet.
telles. The legend is that it rains all
night under a Saman tree. There are
two unchallengeable facts about the
Saman tree upon which this legend
is based. Travellers discovered in the
early days that if they laid their blan-
kets under a Saman tree they would
wake up early in the morning chilled
and wet as if they had been sleeping
on wet ground or it had rained during
the night. (Many tropical trees absorb
and into the soil above the roots and
thus moistened the blankets. The tree
is very commonly called the “rain tree”
throughout the Caribbean and in Co-
lombia and Venezuela.
The Saman tree is also called the
“cow tamarind” but this is not based
upon a legend. The fruit of the Sam-
an tree, a large pod about eight inches
long and an inch thick, is commonly
used food for cattle. It is called a tarn-