Botany Photo of the Day

Fascinating writeup. This sounds like a wonder tree! Thanks, Connor!

Geez! They should call this "Tree of Life"! Is it a tropical-only species? I would think I'd have heard of it before if it were possible to grow it in temperate zones.

Fascinated to read more about underutilized species. Will use your Moringa write-up in my Human Biology course at CCSF for the students to review as part of the Eco Unit. Your excellent presentation expands horizons and personalizes the Tropics. [I cover Biodiversity in 6 hours].
So many botanists in the mild San Francisco Bay area ~ can't help but wonder if any would attempt to grow this species ~ or even if it is already here. Have seen unique collections over the years at SF Botanical Gardens, Conservatory of Flowers.
Thank you, UBC !!!

Very cool! I'll have to have a boo and see if it's growing down here in Ecuador. Definitely a tree for the medicinals section in my garden.

So, what do the leaves taste like? And how are they typically prepared (for eating)?

I had a seed-grown Moringa (assuming the seed in the packet was correctly identified) in a pot for years here in Zone Schizophrenic -- cold enough for almost all apples, warm enough for avocadoes, with a bit of scheming; gets to 18 degrees F. for a while some years, to the high twenties routinely, but not for very long in a normal year; very hot dry summers. My plant never bloomed, which is why I have to take the vendor's word for the ID -- a well-known herb company I've since found to have an extremely cavalier attitude about what it puts in its seed packets. The Moringa, if it was, came up fairly quickly at ambient temperature (soil near the surface 55 F. night, 80 or higher daytime in late April would be normal) -- as I remember, after a day's soak and perhaps nicking seed that didn't swell.

It's my understanding that the name is because the fat taproot looks like horseradish, not that it tastes like it. Mine certainly didn't. The leaves were tough, a bit bitter, and didn't inspire me to make a meal of them, nor add them to one. (We didn't find the 'drumsticks' I once found in an Indian grocery in Berkeley, CA palatable either -- though they may have been overripe or old, or both.) One account's writer

http://www.ednakelly.com/gardening/moringa

mentions that her first plant's leaves had an "off" flavor, and that her second tasted OK and was much prettier -- I suspect that her first plant may have been "sweet neem," as the local Indians call Murraya koenigii. Mine looked very very much like the drumstick tree when I had them both. The M. koenigii leaves have a very dark rather skunky aroma (?) on the tongue, recognisable in some restaurant curries once the original has been tasted.

I did find a chart of the nutritional value of the stripped leaves of Moringa (at http://www.echotech.org/technical/technotes/moringabiomasa.pdf); it looks to me to be similar to that of alfalfa leaves (another 'miracle' food for humans, or so its purveyors would like us to believe) --less, at a guess, as #1 dairy alfalfa (with stems) runs from about 18 to 24% protein, with dried Moringa leaf powder at about 27%. Other nutrient content is (vitamin A, calcium) is comparable to that found in alfalfa too -- good but not miraculous.

Back to the plant: I eventually got tired of dragging the 22" pot into the greenhouse and started leaving it out, and then got tired of waiting for the not all that interesting tree to bloom, and cut it off at the base in midsummer, there being some things I didn't think I could disentangle also in the pot, and it came back several times. I think it's a pretty sturdy plant! Note that sometimes plants in pots resist frost better than those in the ground here, for no reason I've figured out yet, and that the Drumstick Tree pot spent its first winters sitting on greenhouse heating cable in an otherwise unheated greenhouse.

mm

with the specific epithet "oleifera" (I believe it mean "oil bearing") I was surprised there was no mention of it being used as a source of some sort of edible oil.

Is that also a use of this versatile plant?

I read this post with great interest. I am Sri Lankan and just about all gardens there have a spindly "murunga" or "drumstick" tree. We never ate the roots but the pods and leaves were eaten regularly. As kids we loved "drumstick curry" because of the work involved scraping the flesh off the hard peel! The leaves have a distinct taste which I would not describe as an "off taste". To cook the leaves, the leaves were first stripped of the main stem and then cooked by lightly sauteing it with a small amount of onion. In the coastal areas, crabs were always cooked in a curry with Murunga leaves. In the hills, the leaves were blended into a pan fried bread (called roti's) by the Indian tamils (mostly very poor workers' in the tea estates). I am very glad to now know that these leaves are very nourishing. Thank you.

I just happen to have some Moringa seeds. The packet says: 75-80% germination rate, plant 1" deep, germination 2-5 weeks.

http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=49288626@N00&lang=en-us&format=rss_200

If you want to learn more about Moringa (and about the APPEF project in Togo), you can go to the international Moringa Network: www.moringanews.org
You will find a lot of information in the Document section and in the Workshop section.
All the best
Dr Armelle de Saint Sauveur, Director, Moringanews

Thank you so much for the wonderful photograph and all the information. I am amazed at all I learned about the tree. All the different stages in it's growth seem so important. This will take re-reading to asorb all you have given.
Thank you again,
Margaret-Rae