The Cannonball Tree

The Cannonball tree is cultivated all around the world for its fragrant flowers and ‘cannonball’ fruit. In India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia it has many religious and cultural significances.  The Cannonball tree was named after enormous fruit-like nuts which are shaped like cannonballs, and when they fall, one can hear sounds like a cannon firing.  In Guyana, cannonball trees are a spectacular sight to behold with their tall lumbering trunks, perfumed flowers and dangerous bomb-like fruits. Cannonball trees can be found in Brickdam, Georgetown and in the Botanical Gardens. The scientific name for this interesting plant is Couroupita guianensis.

Origin of the Cannonball Tree

The Cannonball tree or Couroupita guianensis is native to the tropical forests of Central America, South America, especially in the Amazon Basin and parts of Asia. It grows in countries like India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia, Costa Rica, Panama Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil and Guyana.

Scientific Classification of the Cannonball Tree

• Kingdom: Plantae
• Clade: Tracheophytes
• Clade: Angiosperms
• Clade: Eudicots
• Clade: Asterids
• Order: Ericales
• Family: Lecythidaceae
• Genus: Couroupita
• Species: C. guianensis

Description of the Cannonball Tree

The Cannonball tree is a deciduous, tall and soft-wooded plant. It can grow to heights of thirty-five 35 metres or one hundred and ten (110) feet. Its leaves grow in clusters at the ends of branches. They are usually eight (8 ) to thirty-one (31) centimetres long but can reach lengths of up to fifty-seven (57) centimetres. The flowers grow in racemes eighty (80) centimetres long. Sometimes the entire trunks of cannonball trees are covered with enormous racemes of these fragrant flowers growing up to ten (10) feet along tree trunks. Cannonball flowers are noted for their sweet smell, especially at night and early morning but are also distinctive in their features and red salmon colour. Flowers of the cannonball trees typically have six petals in colours from pink and red to yellow shades towards their tips. There are also two areas of stamens, a ring and an arrangement that is made into a hood. The fruits are rounded and surrounded by a woody shell and can reach diameters of up to twenty-five (25) centimetres. They are the wooden version of cannonballs, from which the cannonball tree is named. A tree can bear up about one hundred and fifty (150) fruits, each of which contains about sixty-five seeds while the larger ones can hold as many as five hundred and fifty seeds. Fruits take about one year to mature in most areas but can take as long as eighteen (18) months. The fruits of cannonball trees are edible but because of their unpleasant smell, most people do not eat them.

Interesting Tip

• A raceme is a flower cluster with the separate flowers attached by short equal stalks at equal distances along a central stem.
• A cannonball tree can have as many as one thousand (1000) flowers per day.
• The flesh of cannonball fruits is white but turns blue because of contact with the air.
• The Cannonball tree or Couroupita guianensis is popular in Lord Shiva temples and is very sacred to Hindus.

Uses of Cannonball Tree

• The Cannonball tree or Couroupita guianensis is considered a rubefacient (helpful in blood circulation), anti-inflammatory and an antirheumatic medicine.
• In Brazil and the Amazon region the leaves, bark and flowers are frequently used as infusion or tea to treat
  hypertension, tumour, pain and inflammation.
• An infusion of flowers is used as Immuno booster. It treats cold, intestinal gas formation and stomach ache, diarrhoea, hypertension, tumour, pain, inflammation, antibacterial, antifungal and asthma.
• The leaves, roots and bark are used to treat malaria by Shamans of South America. The leaves are used
  as snuff in the powdered form.
• Kailasagirikona tribes and Yanadi tribes in India believes leaves act as an effective hair vitalizer. The leaves of cannonball trees are used to treat a variety of disorders, including skin disorders, toothache, antiseptic, antibacterial, antifungal, antithrombotic, vasodilatory, dysentery, snakebite, arthritis, asthma, hypertension, tumour, pain, rheumatic disorder.
• The bark too is used in the treatment of skin infection, antibacterial and antifungal, snake bite, hypertension, tumour, pain, inflammation, malaria and snakebites.
• Seeds may be used to treat reproductive disorders and infertility.
• The smelly fruit also treats colds, wound, headache, stomach ache, antibacterial, antifungal and is a medicinal drink.

These tall, looming Cannonballs hovering many feet over our heads, their fragrant inflorescences hanging down along their tree trunks.  The most distinctive part of these trees is their cannonball like fruits, from which they got their name. Since they are not very popular, Cannonball trees are not a common sight. If you would like to have a look at the wooden ‘cannons’ of the Cannonball Tree, take a walk down Brickdam, Georgetown where a few remain standing. Stop by the St. Mary’s School in Brickdam, and observe the Cannonball Tree there, which is over one hundred (100) years old. Or, if you are visiting the Botanical Garden, make sure to find the sole Cannonball Tree still growing proudly there.

Article References

• https://www.guyanatourism.com/guyanas-beautiful-floral-landscape/
• http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?taxonid=281687
• http://www.herbmedpharmacol.com/Files/Inpress/jhp-20418.pdf
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couroupita_guianensis