The Cannonball Tree

The Chattel Village shops

The  cannonball fruit

If you're ever in The Chattel Village in Holetown Barbados, do stop by and say hello to one of its strangest residents, the cannonball tree. Like the huge round fruit it is named after, this tree is enormous, providing shade to the guests at the outdoor restaurant.

The true stars of the plant are its fragrant flowers which look like they are from another planet; maybe Pandora in the movie Avatar.

Unlike other flowering trees, these fragrant blooms don't grow up in the canopy but lower down on special leafless branches that extend out from the tree's trunk.

And no that's not a strange caterpillar crawling across the flower. They are the tree's pollen-bearing stamens.

Fun fact: while the tree comes from Central and South America, in Sri Lanka it is considered to be the sacred tree that Lord Buddha was born under!