Milk Tree, Couba, Sorva

For the many times we are warned to avoid the poisonous milky sap of several plants, here's a change of pace: the sap from this tree is ...Read Morenot only non toxic, but it's also delicious!

This is a tall, straight stemed Amazonic tree, with bright green leaves, and pink, small flowers. The fruits are of the size of limes, brown to yellow, and quite sweet. And there's the white sap. It's everywhere in this plant: leaves, unripe fruits, stem, bark, everything has a sticky white sap, but unlike most lactescent plants, the sap can be drank pure, or mixed with other drinks, or even used to make sweets. In the jungle, people use it as substitution to cow milk. From a single, one palm long scratch on the bark you will get 2 glasses of tasty sap.

The only complain is that the sap is still a bit sticky, and might cause skin allergies to sensitive people.

The tree needs an Amazonic environment to grow: high temperatures, high humidity, constantly moist, shallow, well drained organic soil and full sun to partial shade. To the non toxic, sweet milky sap, thumbs up!