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Crescentia cujete
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Main page This article is about the tree. For the unrelated plant sometimes known as calabash, see calabash. For other uses of calabash, see Calabash (disambiguation).
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Crescentia cujete, commonly known as the calabash tree, is species of flowering plant that is grown in Africa, Central, South
Featured content Crescentia cujete
Current events America, West Indies and extreme southern Florida.[1] It is the national tree of St. Lucia. It is a dicotyledonous plant with simple
Random article leaves, which are alternate or in fascicles (clusters) on short shoots.[2] It is naturalized in India.[3]
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It is also known as Calabacero (Spain), Cuité (Brazil), Calabazo (Panama), Totumo (Colombia, Venezuela and Peru), Tutumo (Bolivia
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and Paraguay), Taparo (Venezuela), Mate (Ecuador), Huinga (Peru), Pate (Peru), Cuyabra (Colombia), Jícaro (Mexico, Nicaragua),
Interaction Morro (Guatemala), Güira (Cuba), Cujete (Spain, Philippines), Miracle Fruit (Philippines), Kalbas (Dominica and St. Lucia), Higüero
Help (Dominican Republic), Higuera (Puerto Rico), La'amia (Hawai'i), Rum tree (Sri Lanka) Ugba, Duma and Igba (Nigeria), Đào Tiên
About Wikipedia (Vietnam).[citation needed]
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In Cuba, this tree is known to grow in both disturbed habitat and areas of poor drainage. It can grow up to 10 meters tall.[4]
Recent changes
Contact page The fruit, called jícara, bule, tecomate, guaje, morro or huacal in Mexico, is used to make small vessels for serving or drinking.
[citation needed]
In Cuba, the dried fruit is commonly used as a coffee cup by rural farmers.[4] In Colombia, the dried fruit is halved and
Tools Fruiting branches, and showing bowl made
then partially filled with either stones, beads, seeds, broken glass or a combination and is then used to keep the rhythm in bullerengue of the hard rind of a fruit of that tree
What links here
music. The dried fruit are filled with certain seeds and a handle is made to make maracas in multiple Latin American countries (Koutiala District, Mali, September 2014)
Related changes
[citation needed]
(especially Colombia and Cuba). Western and Southern Africa it is also used for decoration and musical instruments.
Upload file Scientific classification
Special pages The tree shares its common name with that of the vine calabash, or bottle gourd, Lagenaria siceraria).[1]
Kingdom: Plantae
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Page information Contents [hide] (unranked): Angiosperms
Wikidata item (unranked): Eudicots
1 Caribbean
Cite this page
2 Costa Rica (unranked): Asterids
In other projects 3 Mexico Order: Lamiales
Wikimedia Commons 4 Brazil
Family: Bignoniaceae
Wikispecies 5 Venezuela
Genus: Crescentia
6 References
Print/export Species: C. cujete
7 External links
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Binomial name
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Caribbean [ edit ] Crescentia cujete
Languages L.
A calabash is primarily used to make utensils such as cups, bowls, and basins in rural areas. It can be used for carrying water, or for
বাংলা
transporting fish, when fishing. In some Caribbean countries, it is worked, painted, and decorated and turned into items by artisans,
Deutsch
Español and sold to tourists.
Français
As a cup, bowl, or even a water-pipe or "bong", the calabash is considered consistent with the "Ital" or vital lifestyle of not using refined
Bahasa Indonesia
products such as table salt, or modern cooking methods, such as microwave ovens. In Haiti, the plant is called kalbas kouran, literally,
Português
"running calabash", and is used to make the sacred rattle emblematic of the Vodou priesthood, called an asson. As such, the plant is
Русский
த highly respected. It is the national tree of St. Lucia.
中⽂
Costa Rica [ edit ]
18 more
Edit links The Costa Rican town of Santa Bárbara de Santa Cruz holds a traditional annual dance of the calabashes (baile de los guacales). Since
2000, the activity has been considered of cultural interest to the community, and all participants receive a hand-painted calabash vessel
to thank them for their economic contribution (which they paid in the form of an entrance ticket).[5]
Crescentia cujete, dry fruit and
Native Americans throughout the country traditionally serve chicha in calabash vessels to the participants of special events such as the seeds - MHNT
baile de los diablitos (dance of the little fiends).[6]

Mexico [ edit ]

In many rural parts of Mexico, the calabash is dried and carved hollow to create a bule or a guaje, a gourd used to carry water around like a canteen. The jícara fruit is cut in half,
which gave the parallel name to a clay cup also called jícara.

Brazil [ edit ]

Bowls made of calabash were used by Brazilians as utensils made to serve food, and the practice is still retained in some remote areas of Brazil (originally by populations of
various ethnicities, origins and regions, but nowadays mainly by Native Americans). The fruit are also commonly used in Brazil as the resonator for the berimbau, the signature
instrument of capoeira, a martial art/dance developed in Brazilian plantations by African slaves.

Venezuela [ edit ]

In Venezuela "totuma" refers to the vessel made of C. cujete calabash.

Former president Hugo Chávez of Venezuela once suggested Venezuelans avoid showers longer than three minutes during a water
shortage.[7] Critics of Chávez ridiculed this by reductio ad absurdum, suggesting the use of a totuma to bathe (although Chavez himself
did not suggest this),[8][9] inferring that people have to bathe with the quantity of water that only one totuma can hold.

References [ edit ]

1. ^ a b https://www.britannica.com/plant/calabash-tree
2. ^ GENTRY, A.H. 1996. A field guide to the families and genera of woody plants of northwest South America (Columbia, Ecuador, Peru), with
supplementary notes on herbaceous taxa. University of Chicago Press. p. 265.
3. ^ Pharmacographia Indica page 40
4. ^ a b Cuba y sus árboles. Fernández Zequeira, Maira., Instituto de Ecología y Sistemática (Academia de Ciencias de Cuba). La Habana:
Editorial Academia. 1999. ISBN 9590202527. OCLC 44573671 .
Berimbau, musical instrument in
5. ^ "Baile del Guacal" [Dance of the Calabash]. La Nación (in Spanish). 1 July 2010.
Brazil: The fruit functions as a
6. ^ Parrales, Freddy (29 January 2011). "Rey Curré se encendió con el baile de los diablitos" [Rey Curré was ignited with the dance of the little resonator.
fiends]. La Nación (in Spanish).
7. ^ Chavez y el comunismo on YouTube
8. ^ La totuma endógena | Artículos Laureano Márquez . Laureanomarquez.com. Retrieved on 2013-08-16.
9. ^ Como hacer Totuma-Ducha comunista on YouTube

External links [ edit ]

Media related to Crescentia cujete at Wikimedia Commons

Trees portal
Plant of the Week 31 January 2005: Calabash Tree (Crescentia cujete)
Philippine Medicinal Plants: Cujete
"Crescentia cujete" . Plants for a Future.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/02/10/planet-calabash/
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/08/the-art-of-calabash-decoration-in-nigeria/

V·T·E National Symbols of Saint Lucia [hide]

National flag · National coat of arms · National anthem: Sons and Daughters of Saint Lucia · National bird: St. Lucia amazon · National flowers: Rose & Marguerite daisy · National plant:
Bamboo · National tree: Calabash tree

Wikidata: Q214542 · Wikispecies: Crescentia cujete · AoFP: 4148 · APDB: 48367 · APNI: 116540 · EoL: 578228 · EPPO: KTQCU · GBIF: 5415081 ·
Taxon identifiers GRIN: 12209 · iNaturalist: 161121 · IPNI: 319161-2 · IRMNG: 10890656 · ITIS: 34332 · IUCN: 144274257 · MoBotPF: 277886 · NCBI: 1125401 ·
Plant List: kew-320517 · PLANTS: CRCU · POWO: urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:319161-2 · Tropicos: 3700574

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Categories: Crescentia Trees of Central America Trees of the Caribbean Tropical fruit Trees of Mexico Trees of Belize Trees of Brazil Trees of Colombia
Trees of Africa Flora of Africa Flora of northern South America Fruits originating in North America Medicinal plants of Central America
Medicinal plants of South America National symbols of Saint Lucia Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Fruit tree stubs Lamiales stubs
Medicinal plant stubs

This page was last edited on 31 March 2020, at 01:25 (UTC).

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