PERU'S RAIN TREE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10957, 23 December 1911, Page 1 (Supplement)

PERU'S RAIN TREE.

Attention has been called from time to time to natural curiosities in various cornez - s of the globe, but the following contribution from Peru deserves a place among the most curious of all. Peru has a rain tree which affords protection against drought. This tree is supplied with large leaves which have the property of condensing the moisture of the atmosphere and precipitating it in the form of rain. When the rivers are at their lowest, during the dry season, and the heat is intense, the condensing capacity of the tree appears to attain its maximum, the water falling from the leaves and oozing from the trunk in a steady, continuous stream, flowing over the surrounding soil and nourishing the parched ground. It is stated that - a single tree will yield an • average of nine gallons of water per day, and it has been estimated that if a plot of ground a kilometer square be planted with 10,000 trees, a daily yield of about 30,000 gallons would be available for irrigation, after making all allowances for evaporation, etc. The rain tree appears to be indifferent as to the soil in which it grows, can withstand extreme fluctuations of climate, needs but little care in its cultivation and grows rapidly. Under these circumstances one is inclined to believe that it would provide a simple and effective method- of reclaiming the desert, and that the cost of 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 easily be secured by the systematic culture of this tree, coupled with careful irrigation by means of ditches. •