BATS AND THE TAMARIND TREE

Another bean tree that is a bat tree . . . the tamarind tree shares a botanical family and a bat association with the blackbean tree, the petai tree, the carob tree, the West Indian locust tree and the West African locust tree.

Another bat tree that has a multiplicy of uses: food, timber, medicine, fuel, and many items useful in homes and in commercial processes.

Another bat tree that has so many human uses that it is regarded by the people who share its long life as a sacred tree.

The tamarind tree is a native of Africa but is widespread in tropical countries. The seeds are known to be planted by flying foxes in Australia and by the Rodrigues flying fox in West Indian Ocean islands.

Rodrigues flying fox (Pteropus rodricensis)
Photograph: Pam Thomas, Lubee Bat Conservancy

The pulp of the pods is so tasty that the seeds are planted by a variety of appreciative creatures besides the flying foxes.

Next follows the long list of tamarind tree uses:

Beautiful to behold, tall with lacy foliage, it is planted as an ornamental tree.

Food: leaves, flowers, young pods, mature unripe pods, ripe pods and pulp. The pulp is made into chutneys, confections, drinks, syrup, ice cream and wine.

Commercial uses:

Seeds - processed for pectin
Pulp - dying fixative
Leaves - animal fodder, silkworm food, dype, bleach
Flowers - honey bee forage
Seeds powder - textile sizing, plastic manufacture, glue, brick and briquette component, leather treatment
Oil - lamps, varnish
Timber - furniture, wheels, ploughs, boat planking, mallets, mortars, pestles, walking sticks
Twigs - chew sticks
Bark - tanning, ink, twine and string

Medicine - treatment for every imaginable ailment including fever, constipation, diarrhea, poor digestion, liver and bile disorder, inflammations, sore throat, rheumatism, sunstroke, intoxication, paralysis, swollen joints, sprains, boils, inflamed eyes, dysentery, hemorrhoids, colic, gingivitis, asthma,sores, caterpillar rashes, leprosy

Bibliography:

Fujita, M.S. 1991. Flying Fox (Chiroptera:Pteropodidae) Pollination, Seed Dispersal, and Economic Importance: A Tabular Summary of Current Knowledge, Resource Publication No. 2, Bat Conservation International

Hedrick, U.P., Editor, Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World, Dover, 1972 (originally published in 1919), page 562.

Morton, J. 1987. Tamarind, p. 115-121. In: Fruits of warm climates. Julia F. Morton, Miami, FL

Plant

Family: Leguminosae
Species: Tamarindus indica

Bats

Pteropus species (Australia)
Rodrigues flying fox (Pteropus rodricensis, W Indian Ocean Is.)

Written by ML Alley-Crosby who thanks the Lubee Bat Conservancy

http://www.lubee.org

for permission to use Pam Thomas's photograph of the Rodrigues flying fox.

This is an educational, non-profit website.

December 2006

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