A BOTANICAL CURIOSITY

Northland Age, Volume VIII, Issue 26, 16 February 1912, Page 2

A BOTANICAL CURIOSITY

THE PERU RAIN-TREE. One of the botanical curiosities of Peru, which offers a protection against drought, is the rain-tree This tree, which grows to large proportions, is supplied with large leaves which have the property of condensing the moisture of the at mosphere and precipitating it in t Inform of rain. When the rivers are at their lowest during the dry season, and the heat is intense, tho condensing capacity of this tree is apparently a t its highest, the water falling from the leaves and oozing from the trunk in a. steady continuous stream, flowing over the immediately surrounding ground, and nourishing the parched soil. This water can be collected and carried by y ditches to distant points for irrigation purposes.

It is stated that a single tree will yield on an average nine gallons of water per day. It is computed that if a plot of ground a kilometre square is planted with ten thousand trees, a daily yield of nearly thirty thousand gallons of water available for irrigation, with due allowance for evaporation, can be secured. The rain-tree appears to be indifferent as to the soil in which it grows, can withstand extreme climatic fluctuations, needs but little care in its cultivation, and grows rapidly. It would seem that under these circumstances nature has provided a simple and eflective means of reclaiming the desert, and that the widespread cultivation of the rain-tree • would be amply repaid, inasmuch as there are vast tracts of country in all the five continents which at present have no economic value owing to absence of water-supplies for nourishing the soil, which might he easily secured by systematic culture of this tree.—“ Chambers's Journal.”