It’s scientific name is ochroma pyramidale. Etymologically, it is derived from two greek words: ochrós/οχρός which is derived from the ochre color of iron, which means yellow, or pale in a more metaphorical sense; and pyramid, the well known geometrical shape. I guess it is called so because it’s trunk is yellowish (for the indigenous peoples of the Amazonia it is “white”), and its leaf is triangular, seemingly like a pyramid.
It is also called ochroma lagopus: in this case lagos/λαγός means rabbit, and pus/πούς is the foot, again in Greek. The reason is that when it is about to bear fruit, its fruits are protected by a cottonish substance and look like a rabbit foot. In fact, this cottonish substance is the reason why this particular tree is so expansive: it travels with the wind (and the rivers) and its fruits spread everywhere. For an Amazonian community I met, this is the reason why this type of wood and its fruits are the symbol of the wandering person: the traveller. There is even a beautiful song about it- but I will dedicate a specific post to that.
However, it is popularly known as balsa.
The reason takes some sociological imagination (and some historical research) in order to be found. Balsa, in fact, is the word the Spaniards use to say raft.
It appears that in late 1520s when La compañia de Levante sailed down the pacific from today’s Panama all the way to today’s Peru in search of riches and Empires as big as that of Mexico, they came across a raft , full of riches more or less on what is today the Ecuadorian coast. It was their first contact with the Inca civilization. Therefore, they called the type of wood that had been used to create the raft: balsa wood, wood that makes rafts that is. Of course they quickly ignored the wood itself, amazed by the shine of the riches they pillaged. That type of wood that the South American sailors of the time had used to sail along the Pacific coast is ever since called balsa. In a way, it is a colonial name, that was invented due to the colonial practice of pillaging. Notwithstanding its bitter history, it is how the wood, and the tree that produces it, is called to this day in the Americas.
Balsa, is a tree that can be found all the way down from Southern Mexico to North and Eastern Bolivia, wherever there is tropical vegetation and sufficient water that is. However, its main global exporter is Ecuador, that exports between 70% and 80% of global production.
To find out why, we have to continue scratching historical archives, as well as to wait for this Blog’ post #3.
Last modified: November 1, 2024
