Drumstick Trees

Until just recently, I never heard of the Moringa Oleifera tree.  Aka Drumstick tree.  Have you?  One of our co-conspirators at The Compound found out about them, ordered some seeds and now we have a plethora of drumstick trees.

  

Here’s what Wikipedia had to say:

  is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Moringa, which is the only genus in the family Moringaceae. English common names include moringa,^[1] drumstick tree,^[1] from the appearance of the long, slender, triangular seed pods, horseradish tree,^[1] from the taste of the roots which resembles horseradish, ben oil tree or benzoil tree,^[1] from the oil derived from the seeds. It is a fast-growing, drought-resistant tree that is native to the southern foothills of the Himalayas in northwestern India, but widely cultivated in tropical and sub-tropical areas.

 

Well it grows great here in Central Florida, from what we can tell, and it is a fast- growing tree.   The leaves (the most nutritious part; B, C,A, K vitamins, beta-carotene, protein, etc) are used in soup, or cooked like spinach, oil is pressed from mature seeds, or the seeds can be removed from the pod and eaten like peas or roasted like nuts, roots taste similar to horseradish.

The Moringa tree has been used in other parts of the world to combat malnutrition.   Now you know, thanks to Ron!

If you want to learn more, here’s the link to the Wikipedia site.  There are thousands of other sites, but they seem to sell the end products.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moringa_oleifera