Carob

Appearance

The carob tree grows up to 15 m tall. The crown is broad and semispherical, supported by a thick trunk with rough brown bark and sturdy branches. Its leaves are 10 to 20 cm long, alternate, pinnate, and may or may not have a terminal leaflet. It is frost-tolerant to roughly 20 °F.

Most carob trees are dioecious and some are hermaphroditic, so strictly male trees do not produce fruit. When the trees blossom in autumn, the flowers are small and numerous, spirally arranged along the inflorescence axis in catkin-like racemes borne on spurs from old wood and even on the trunk; they are pollinated by both wind and insects. The male flowers smell like human semen, an odor that is caused in part by amines.

The fruit is a legume, that is elongated, compressed, straight, or curved, and thickened at the sutures. The pods take a full year to develop and ripen. When the sweet, ripe pods eventually fall to the ground, they are eaten by various mammals, such as swine, thereby dispersing the hard inner seed in the excrement.

The seeds of the carob tree contain leucodelphinidin, a colourless flavanol precursor related to leucoanthocyanidins.

Naming

The word "carob" comes from Middle French', which borrowed it from Arabic, which ultimately borrowed it perhaps from Akkadian language ' or Aramaic "kharubha", or related to Hebrew "harubh". "Ceratonia siliqua", the scientific name of the carob tree, derives from the Greek "kerátiοn" κεράτιον "fruit of the carob", and Latin "siliqua" "pod, carob".

Tanḥum ben Joseph of Jerusalem, a 12th century Israelite poet, Hebrew lexicographer and biblical exegete who compiled several Hebrew works whilst living in Jerusalem
associates in his writings the origin of the Ancient Hebrew word "kharuv" in the Hebrew root ḥ.r.b ח.ר.ב.
This root and the words based on it are associated with destruction, certain weapons, and aridity.

He claims the etymology is based on the fact that the very hard seeds of the carob "destroy" the teeth of those who eat them.

In addition to Tanḥum ha-Yerushalmi, scholars of Ancient Hebrew claim the name could also be related to the Hebrew word for sword "חרב" "kherev" because of the carob's scimitar like shape. Or related to the name for arid "חורב" due to the fact that the tree's fruits are hard and void of moisture, especially from the outside.

In English, it is also known as "St John's bread",From the belief that the seeds and pulp were the "locusts" and "honey" eaten by John the Baptist as well as "locust tree", the designation also applied to several other trees from the same family.The carob tree is widely cultivated in the horticultural nursery industry as an ornamental plant for Mediterranean climates and other temperate regions around the world, being especially popular in California and Hawaii. The plant develops a sculpted trunk and the form of an ornamental tree after being "limbed up" as it matures, otherwise it is used as a dense and large screening hedge. The plant is very drought tolerant as long as one does not care about the size of the fruit harvest, so can be used in xeriscape landscape design for gardens, parks, and public municipal and commercial landscapes.

Habitat

Although cultivated extensively, carob can still be found growing wild in eastern Mediterranean regions, and has become naturalized in the west.

Reproduction

Most of the roughly 50 known cultivars are of unknown origin and only regionally distributed. The cultivars show high genetic and therefore morphological and agronomical variation.