Native plant: Anacahuita

Hello, everyone.

For a change, a couple of pictures of a native small tree in our area:

The glorious blooms of the anacahuita tree. 

 If there is no freeze, this tree can be in bloom all year long. It produces a whitish fruit, about the size of a large olive, which has a husk. Ground squirrels eat the seeds, I hear, and if not the tree will produce many, many little trees where the fruit fell to the ground.

Another name for Anacahuita is Wild Olive. This is because of the resemblance of the fruits to olives. It is not actually an olive tree, as you can see by its leaves.

At Rancho Lomitas, up the road a ways from here, the naturalist Benito Trevino has made a fascinating video that, in part, discusses the uses of the Anacahuita fruits.