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5 plants worth knowing

St. Lucia

Saint Lucia is a mountainous volcanic island whose interior is covered in humid rainforest protected in forest reserves, while the famous cones of the Pitons rise above the west coast. The warm, humid climate favours banana and cocoa plantations in the fertile valleys, and the drier ends of the island – the north and the area around Vieux Fort – are covered in scrub and dry forest. The national symbols are the calabash tree, bamboo, and the rose and the marguerite – the emblems of two traditional flower societies.

Hover over a plant to see on the map where it grows.

where it grows

  1. Calabash tree 1

    tree · National tree of Saint Lucia

    Calabash tree

    Crescentia cujete

    A tree whose huge, hard fruits, growing straight from the trunk, have served for centuries as bowls, ladles and rattles.
  2. Common bamboo 2

    bamboo · National plant of Saint Lucia

    Common bamboo

    Bambusa vulgaris

    Bamboo, Saint Lucia’s national plant, forms dense clumps along rivers that creak in the wind and stand as tall as a house of several storeys.
  3. Banana 3

    crop

    Banana

    Musa acuminata

    For decades Saint Lucia’s “green gold” – green bananas, known here as “fig”, are the basis of the national dish.
  4. Gommier 4

    tree

    Gommier

    Dacryodes excelsa

    The giant gommier dominates Saint Lucia’s rainforest, and for centuries fishermen have built boats from its hollowed-out trunks.
  5. Cacao 5

    crop

    Cacao

    Theobroma cacao

    Cacao trees in the shadow of the Pitons – plantations around Soufrière produce beans for prized single-estate chocolates.