Thursday, January 24, 2013

Money Money How About Some Mulla


money tree plant Today we saw a money tree (pachira giabra)created I guess for the Chinese New Year Its about 4 plants twisted to grow together. The leaves reminded me of a mango tree but they say it's  known as a French Peanut. Guinea Peanut etc... It grows in tropical areas like Brazil, Puerto Rico etc...
If you let it, it can grow 30-60 feet high. It can yield 10-25 smooth green fruit per tree, the capsule of which is about 4-8 inches.
 An old tree can produce 50-80 fruit per year. You shouldn't expect any fruit for 4-5 years. The seeds are quite delicious they say. They can be boiled fried or roasted and taste like  peanuts.
 They can  be ground and drunk as hot chocolate.
The young flowers and leaves can also be eaten. They contain 16% protein and 40-50% fat.
 The Chinese like these trees because they are easy to grow in pots and can be turned into bonsai trees
which they then call lucky  or money trees.
 The bark of these trees can be used for stomach problems , head aches and to strengthen your blood. Interesting.
The Chinese come up with many fun things to educate oneself with.
Beside this Money tree were beautiful orchids which also take a long time to flower.
 Must be a good year for these plants this year.

Anyway, when we saw them, we asked people what kind of tree it was and no one knew.
They just said Money tree and laughed. That's all the tag said too.

I am sure many curious people like me, went home and tried to find out what exactly, kind of plant it was.
A tree like this can be made out of 4 different plants I am sure, which then can produce different fruit.
Wouldn't that be a wild idea? I used to have a tree in my back yard which was half magnolia and half cherry.
Someone stuck the two of them together when they were small and the trunks melted into each other so it grew as one tree with separate roots.
 xoxoxoxoxox

6 comments:

Maude Lynn said...

I was hoping it grew actual money!

SandyCarlson said...

What a great tree.

A Lady's Life said...

Mama Zen - So did I lol
Then we could say money does grow on trees.

A Lady's Life said...

Sandy - it does make me want to see if I could take three four seedlings of different fruit trees and wrap them around each other and see what happenes when they grow.That would certainly be a tree to come look at.

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi A Lady's Life .. I'm afraid I always hit Wikipedia - usually the data is near enough right .. and then if I really want to .. I can verify elsewhere.

Interesting about the Chinese New Year, Bonsai's and the money trees - a huge market place = the Chinese!

Cheers Hilary

A Lady's Life said...

Yes Hilary but it seems its all going down to Indonesia now.
I still like the Chinese celebrations. I enjoyed all of them.