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BATS
AND THE CLAMMY CHERRY TREE |
The clammy cherry or red manjack tree grows in South America, Mexico, the Caribbean and is seed-dispersed by the Jamaican fruit bat.
The clammy cherry tree is not likely to ever join the mango tree as one of the World's Most Useful Trees. Its fruit will not ever be the favourite fruit of any country as are bat-pollinated and bat-planted bananas and bat-planted mangoes. Its virtues have not merited it being called the "tree of life" as is the baobab tree. Neither does it merit, as far as we know, being called the "village pharmacy" as is the neem tree.
The small red fruit is edible, sometimes eaten by humans, relished by birds as well as bats. Domestic chickens do not disdain a hand-out of ripe clammy cherries.
The wood of the clammy cherry tree finds some favour as fence posts, as veneer, in the fashioning of furniture and as a component of plywood.
However, in these days when rainforests are being devastated by logging, the clammy cherry tree makes a major ecological contribution because of its pioneering, fast-growing and shade-providing growth pattern.
Bat-planted clammy cherry seeds will germinate in exposed, isolated conditions. The seeds sprout quickly and send up strong seedlings that will soon provide perchs for birds. Those birds will defecate and disperse seeds of less hearty rainforest plants that can then flourish in the clammy cherry's shady protection.
Jamaican fruit bats; (Artibeus jamaicensis)
Photograph: Pam Thomas, Lubee Bat Conservancy
References:
Cordia collococca, CDS Teachers Websites, The County Day School, Escazu, Costa Rica, http://www.cds.ed.cr/teachers/harmon/page22.html
Gardner, A.L. 1977. Feeding Habits, Biology of bats of the New World family Phyllostomatidae. Part II. R.J. Baker, J.J.K. Jones and D.C. Carter, Spec. Publ. Mus. Texas Tech. Univ. vol.13:293-350, citing Osburne, W., Notes on the Chiroptera of Jamaica, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1865:61-85, 1865.
Grandtner, Miroslav M., World Dictionary of Trees, Cordia collococca; http://www.wdt.qc.ca
Ortega, J.,Castro-Arellano, Ivan, Artibeus jamaicansis, Mammalian Species, No. 662, pp. 1-9, 5 June 2001
Sewal, Jo-Anne Nina, Field Trip Report Tobago:April 23-25, 2004, The Field Naturalist, Quaterly Bulletin of the Trinadad and Tobago Field Naturalists' Club, July-December Nos. 3/4, 2004
THE PLANT Family: Boraginaceae |
THE BAT Jamaican fruit bat (Artibeus jamaicensis) |