White cedar (Tabebuia pallida)
White cedar is a misleading common name because this tree is not a cedar and looks nothing like a cedar. Elsewhere it is also called the Cuban pink trumpet tree.
White cedar was introduced to Bermuda by at least 1860 when the large tree at the former Perfume Factory in Bailey’s Bay was planted by a Captain Hollis. It is still there, nearly 150 years later! In 1883, O.A. Reade noted that several were growing “around Public Buildings and along Front Street, Hamilton” and N.L. Britton, in his Flora of Bermuda (1918), wrote that it was naturalized (spreads by itself) and was widely planted for shade and ornament. Today, it is fairly common along Bermuda’s roads. Look for the avenue of white cedars in Paget where the Botanical Gardens border South Road, south of Camden House.
White cedar can grow to sixty feet, has a lovely shape, and develops a furrowed trunk (photo). The leaves are made up of three or five shiny, four inch-long leaflets. At times, the tree can be nearly without leaves, but new leaves soon replace those lost. The abundant bell-shaped flowers (photo) are two to three inches long and are pale pink, almost white, with a yellow throat. White cedar flowers in the summer and continues into the autumn.
Young green fruit follow the flowers and look like beans (but don’t be fooled into thinking white cedar’s in the pea and bean family). The fruit is five to eleven inches long, rather narrow and when mature, dries and splits to release numerous seeds with white ‘wings’ (photo); the winged seeds are dispersed by the wind. The wood is widely used elsewhere for flooring, furniture, cabinetwork, interior trim, tool handles, decorative veneers, boat-building, ox yokes, millwork, and sporting goods. Less valuable grades are suitable for boxes, crates, concrete forms and similar items, and occasionally for posts and poles.
There are approximately 100 different types of Tabebuia, all native to tropical America. Several are used in herbal medicine as a remedy for inflammation and infections.
The scientific name comes from its native South American name, tacyba bebya, and pall, the Latin word root for pale. Tabebuia in general are called trumpet trees. Other members of the family grown in Bermuda include pink tecoma, jacaranda, calabash, African tulip tree and cat’s claw vine.
Bermuda’s Flora Volume 1 & Volume 2 by Lisa Green are both available at the Bermuda Bookstore.
