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In Bloom: Spinach Tree
HARRIET HOWARD HEITHAUS
The Spinach Tree is full of nutrients, but only after its leaves are well cooked.
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You don’t see the Spinach Tree often. It doesn’t carry immense blooms, and on some cultivars the leaves can be irritating because of its kinship to the common stinging nettle in northern statess. But the Spinach or Chaya (Cyaya) Tree (Cnidoscolus aconitifolius) is a tidy-looking, carefree tropical shrub to small tree with small white blooms that shoot out in the summer.
Its leaves are a nutritious addition to soups and casseroles all year. They’re great sources of protein, vitamins A and C and minerals such as calcium, iron, phosphorus, niacin, riboflavin, and thiamine, says information from Ecumenical Concerns for Hunger Organization (ECHO). ECHO grows Spinach Trees at its Fort Myers farm.
A word of warning from ECHO: The nutritious leaves are poisonous until they’re boiled at least five minutes. Don’t even breathe in the vapors while it’s cooking, which is how the poison it released. Chaya contains cyanogenic glycosides, sources of cyanide poisoning. Cooking chaya in boiling water for five minutes or frying (not simply stir-frying) rids the stem and leaf materials of the poisonous cyanide components, it says. And a final word of caution: Cooking it in aluminum may also create a toxic reaction.
Yes, that makes its nutrition value a mixed benefit. But if you just want good-looking landscaping, butterflies love the tree and it grows dependably to a trim 10 to 15 feet in dappled sun, making a great addition to a partly shady yard. We saw at least three of them in the Royal Lane area of Kings Lake, but they’re scarce around newer homes.
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Spinach Tree
• Common names: Spinach Tree, Chay Tree
• Botanical name: Cnidoscolus acontifolius
• Origin: Mexico and Central America
• Size and appearance : 10 to 15 feet hight; mounded shape with shrublike growth; green leaves with five large spearlike lobes with smaller extensions and clusters of small, white waxy flowers that are at the end of upright stems
• Uses: Specimen plant in shady areas, food (see cooking directions)
• Where to buy: This is a difficult plant to obtain, and it does face the danger of dying back during etremely cold weather; if you have a neighbor who owns a tree, you may be able to ask for a cutting, with woody stem, to root
• For more information:
www.echonet
davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/54381/
• Pests: Few; there is a mosaic disease in Mexico, but it doesn’t seem to have come here.
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