Hi, everyone. Welcome to my little corner of the world. This post is all about trees, nature and greens. Let’s call it a greenery post. LOL. I’ll share some pictures so you get an understanding of what I’m talking about.

Here goes:

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This picture has three trees in it. There’s a palm tree, a plantain tree and a bitter leaf tree. The palm tree is tall and at the back. The plantain is by the left and the bitter leaf by the right. The palm tree like we all know has many benefits. From the palm fruit which can be processed to get palm oil or red oil, to the kernels which can also be processed to get a special kind of pomade used as medicine especially for children. There’s also the palm fronds used for making local hand fans and baskets. Then, there’s a special kind of stew called ofe akwu - prepared from palm fruits by boiling them till they are very soft, before they are mashed and the paste squeezed out with the help of warm water, till only the shaft and uncracked kernels remain. You can use it to eat white rice or jollof rice (haven’t tried this) or anything at all. It’s common to people from the eastern part of Nigeria know as the Igbos. I can’t speak for the rest of the world though.

The plantain is very nutritious. It can be roasted, which is very sweet by the way ahaha. It can also be boiled and eaten with stew or cooked as pottage.

The bitter leaf is a special kind of leaf, also attributed majorly to the Igbos. It can be used to cook a lot of things like soup, yam, plantain, even vegetable sauce. It’s bitter, that’s actually where the name came from. You remove the bitterness by mashing it till it’s gone. It’s also medicinal.

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This one is a mango tree. Mangoes are out of season at the moment. They were everywhere about three weeks ago. One thing with mangoes is that they ripe at the same time and also finish at a go. There are many species. The one in the picture is call German mango by a lot of people around here. Some call it opiolo. They believe it’s the native name. Some others call it English mango. This particular mango is very sweet, and the beautiful thing about it is that you can eat as many as you want without having to worry about stomach upset. You just have to be ready to urinate.

So there, you have them.

Both photographs were taken by me few minutes ago.

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This is my entry for Ttop Contest No. 21. Find original post here

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