Calabash tree

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

A small, spreading tree of the bignonia family growing 6–10 m tall, with long, horizontal branches densely covered in tufts of leaves. Its bell-shaped, yellow-green flowers have an unpleasant smell; they grow directly from the trunk and limbs and are pollinated at night by bats. The round fruits, up to 30 cm across, have a hard, woody shell – hollowed out and dried, it is turned into vessels, spoons, musical instruments and ornaments.

Significance in the country

For generations the calabash has been an everyday vessel and a craft material in Saint Lucia’s Creole culture, made into bowls, ladles and shak-shak rattles; as the national tree it symbolises the island’s resourcefulness and rural traditions.

Where it grows

All over the island – near houses, in pastures and on field margins, more often in the drier lowland parts of the coast than in the mountainous interior.

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