One of the stop's during Davis' Ride of Silence was close to a carob (Ceratonia siliqua) tree I know of. I noticed some dropped branches on the street nearby and picked them up.
Carob is cauliflorous & ramiflourous - its racemes of flowers bloom directly from its trunk and branches. @plantscience@gardening
When left to its own devices, #carob tends to grow as a many-trunked tree or a very tall bush. The street tree examples I've seen tend to be pruned to be single trunk.
But occasionally I see carob volunteers that unknowing folks prune into hedge shapes. This is growing right next to its tall street tree parent.
Something remarkable about the interdisciplinary study of #carob I've been doing in my "free" time for years now is that I very frequently run into evidence of racism. Sometimes directly in my sources, but other times just in things nearby. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre
Like this headline in a newspaper that also contains an other story I'm researching.
Not that I didn't know that the US had long history of racism...
Pollinated Ceratonia siliqua (carob) flowers turning green and growing in size as this year's fruit harvest remains on the tree below them. @plantscience
Harvard course content on EdX. Neat course, but whoever sourced the images for this trusted Google Images with the input "locust" or "carob" and instead turned up another Fabaceae species from what locust bean gum is made from.
I see this mistake all the time from the general public. However, any institution ought to be having a knowledgeable editor fact check.
Carob trees bloom around the same time this year's pod crop is harvesting. This is one of Davis' carobs that's in bloom right now. Carobs are mostly dioecious("two houses" from Greek), which means that some trees have male flowers and some have female flowers. A small % of trees have perfect flowers - meaning both male and female reproductive parts. @plantscience#Botany#Carob#Flowers
Progress photo of the oldest #Carob flower raceme on my tree. It's hermaphrodite when most carobs have either male or female flowers. Technically, this can self-pollinate, but it'll be interesting seeing if it will do it under the current conditions.
Some stamens are already past their prime. Some are fully ripe, others still on the way. Same with the pistils. If you look closely, you can see the seam on the pistil that would show up in the ripe fruit as well. @plantscience #Flower#Botany