Calabash tree (Crescentia cujete). Leaves and fruits.

Calabash tree - Crescentia cujete

Crescentia cujete, commonly known as the calabash tree, is a species of flowering plant a medium size tree in the trumpet vine family Bignoniaceae native to the Americas, and which is grown in Africa, Southeast Asia, Central America, South America, the West Indies and extreme southern Florida. It is the national tree of St. Lucia.

Crescentia cujete is a small or medium-sized tree with a dense, rounded crown; it usually grows up to 10 metres tall. The thick bole can be 30cm in diameter. It is a dicotyledonous plant with simple leaves, which are alternate or in fascicles (clusters) on short shoots.  Its very useful fruit is up to 30 cm long by 25 cm wide.

The largest fruits upon the tree, globose in form, remind one somewhat of green pumpkins, and a small tree loaded with these huge fruits is an almost unbelievable sight.

A multipurpose tree, it is harvested from the wild for use as a food, medicine and source of materials.

Edible uses of the plant. The young fruit is occasionally pickled. Considered the equal of pickled walnuts. The seed can be eaten when cooked. It is also used to make a beverage. A syrup and a popular confection called 'carabobo' is made from the seed. To make the syrup, the seeds are ground finely, mixed with sugar and a little water then boiled. A very popular drink in Nicaragua, where it is known as 'semilla de jicaro', and is almost the national drink there. The roasted seeds, combined with roasted wheat, are used as an aromatic and flavourful coffee substitute. The leaves are sometimes cooked in soups.

Medicinal uses of the plant. The pulp of the fruit is astringent, emollient, expectorant and laxative. It is used in domestic medicines. The fruit is abortifacient, emetic, emmenagogue, purgative and vermifuge. A syrup made from the pulp of the fruit is a popular remedy for colds. The juice of the fruit is used to treat diarrhoea, pneumonia and intestinal irregularity. It is made into a strong tea and drunk to procure an abortion, to ease childbirth, and is used in a mix to relieve severe menstrual pains by eliminating blood clots. A syrup made from the fruit is used to treat consumption.

The leaves are astringent, cholagogue, emetic (in larger doses), and purgative. An infusion is sometimes administered for treating dysentery. It is boiled with sugar, soft grease or Buckley's white rub to make a syrup that is used to treat colds. Juice of young leaves is drunk to remedy colds and lung diseases. The leaf is chewed to treat toothache. The leaves are used as a wash to cleanse dirty wounds. The crushed leaves are applied on wounds to stop bleeding and promote healing. The pounded leaves are applied as a poultice for treating headache. The latex from the leaves is applied topically to promote the healing of the belly button after birth.

The whole plant is used as a diuretic against hydropsy and diarrhoea. A decoction of the bark is used to clean wounds. An infusion of the flowers is used to treat earache and whooping cough.

The plant produces subglobose hard-shelled fruits about 15 - 30cm long. Local people constrict the growth of these fruits by tying strings around them and, by so doing, fashion them into a variety of shapes. These can then be used as rattles, bowls, cups, containers etc, in much the same way as bottle gourds (Lagenaria siceraria) are used.

The most general use of the shells is for making drinking vessels, but the larger ones serve to store all sorts of articles. Sections of the oblong forms are much used in place of spoons. Many of the jicaras, as the cups made from the shells are called, are handsomely decorated in colours or by incised designs. The hard, smooth shells polish well and are finely carved for ritual use in some parts of Africa.

The fruit is primarily used to make utensils, such as cups, bowls, and basins, in rural areas. It can be used for carrying water, or for transporting fish, when fishing. In some Caribbean countries, it is worked, painted, and decorated and turned into items by artisans, and sold to tourists. 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 products such as table salt, or modern cooking methods, such as microwave ovens. In Haiti, the plant is called kalbas kouran, literally, "running calabash", and is used to make the sacred rattle emblematic of the Vodou priesthood, called an asson. As such, the plant is highly respected. It is the national tree of St. Lucia. In Cuba, the dried fruit is commonly used as a coffee cup by rural farmers. In Dominican Republic, the plant is called the higüero tree and it is popularly used to make decorative objects and ornaments, though historically it has been used in all sorts of ways.

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). Native Americans throughout the country traditionally serve chicha in calabash vessels to the participants of special events such as the baile de los diablitos (dance of the little devils).

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. These jícaras can also be used for serving or drinking.

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 enslaved Africans.

In Colombia, the dried fruit is halved and then partially filled with either stones, beads, seeds, broken glass or a combination and is then used to keep the rhythm in bullerengue music. The dried fruit are filled with certain seeds and a handle is made to make maracas in multiple Latin American countries (especially Colombia and Cuba).

In Western and Southern Africa it is also used for decoration and musical instruments. Calabash bowls are also widely used by women working as artisanal gold miners, to 'pan for' & recover fine grains of gold.

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescentia_cujete
https://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=crescentia+cujete