Fujairah Flora: Calotropis procera or Sodom’s apple

Calotropis procera, or Sodom’s apple, had both flowers and seed pods. The flowers are miracles of geometry. When still in bud, they are pentagonal box of white velvet tinged with purple.

Then the petals fold out, their tips a dark purple surrounding a pentagonal pistil, which is light green and glossy like porcelain. From the middle of each side of the pistil, dark purple stamens lie against the white bases of the flower’s petals.

The fruit is even more intriguing, if you take the trouble to open one. Even though they are at least 10 cms long and three centimeters wide, they are surprisingly hard to find, if you look at the shrub casually.

Here in the UAE, they look like plump bananas, but from pictures and stories in North Africa they are more similar to apples, hence the common name Sodom’s apple.

Inside the soft green shell an intricate pattern is revealed. Each seed is shaped like a  fish-scale and lies tightly against the next, attached by a silvery thread to the common core of the pod.

When the pod bursts, the light seed will float away, carried by its parachute thread. It is a successful mechanism, judging by the fact that this is one of the most common bushes of all in North Africa and Middle East.