My husband said I should write
something about the beautiful caper trees that bloom on our property.
We had no idea what they were until a couple of years ago when we really
started looking around the lot at the native trees. Then it seemed like there
were capers everywhere.
In fact, there are several
different kinds of caper trees here, including black (or Jamaica) capers and white
capers, both of which are common in St. John's coastal areas. They
are very attractive trees that don’t require any special
attention because they are already well adapted to the environment. Most
importantly, they don’t need any water from our cistern to thrive during the
dry periods, and don't drop their hard, leathery leaves.
The flowers from these two types of trees are showy and very fragrant, and when the trees are in bloom they are covered with bees. The difference is that the flowers from the Jamaican caper start out white and then turn a lovely light purple.
The caper trees here are related
to the ones that produce those funny little green things in a jar that are used
in French and Italian cooking. Those are the unopened buds from Capparis
spinosa, a thorny tree that grows in the Mediterranean. When the Europeans
arrived here they found trees that were similar to, but larger than, the caper
trees they knew back home. The buds here are not as tasty as the European ones, though, which
have been cultivated since ancient times.
Sometimes caper fruits are also eaten, but apparently not always with great relish. The trees produce long brown bean-like pods that split along one side at maturity, exposing a bright red interior and black seeds covered with a thin layer of red pulp. The appearance of these pods sometimes seems to be disturbing.
In
Puerto Rico, one type of caper tree is called rat-bean, and the white caper is
known as sapo prieto, which means ‘black toad’. Maybe that’s because the pod
takes on weird shapes as it gets dried up and twisted around while it’s still
hanging on the tree. Caper pods have also been called pois mabouye, or
evil spirit beans, from the native Caribbean Taino word 'maboya', so it was not just the Europeans
who thought they were creepy.
On a
somewhat different note, Linneus, the great Swedish botanist who gave Latin
names to many of the world’s plants, mischievously named the black caper Capparis
cynophallophora, due to what he claimed was a resemblance between the seed
pod and a dog’s genitalia.
In
Eleanor Gibney’s Field Guide to Native Trees & Plants of the East End,
St. John, she reports that “Teas and infusions of bark and roots have been
used both externally for skin ailments and internally for hysteria, venereal
diseases and worms.” It is interesting to imagine the types of experiments that
went into determining which types of bark and roots can be used to cure
hysteria and/or venereal diseases. I wonder how many types of infusions someone
would have to try before finding one that worked, while in the meantime the
hysteria or venereal disease, or both, raged on.
Elsewhere
I read that the roots have also been ground up and used like mustard or
horseradish.
For
myself, I am content just to look at them and admire their low-key beauty,
their hardy evergreen foliage, and their occasional shows of frilly white
flowers. I did taste one of the buds – not very palatable, but maybe I
should try pickling them.
