Spindle tree

On the Brazilian plateau in South America, a tall, chic tree grows. It is 30 meters high, two sharp, the middle puffy, the thickest place diameter of up to 5 meters, far from a look like a giant spindle inserted in the ground, people call it a spindle tree.

the tree into the rainy season, sparse branches and heart-shaped leaves on the top of the tall tree, like a big radish. After the rainy season, the arrival of the dry season, green leaves have withered, red flowers have opened, at this time, a spindle tree has become a large vase with red flowers, so people call it bottle tree.

the bottle tree so it grows into this strange look, and it has to do with the environment in which it lives. The Amazon basin in northern Brazil, hot and rainy, is a tropical rainforest area, and in the south and east, the dry season is longer, the climate is arid, the soil is very
dowing
, for the savannah belt. Located between the rainforest and the savannah, the year has both a rainy and dry season, but a shorter rainy season. The bottle tree lives in this middle ground. Its ecology is adapted to this particular environment. The deciduous leaves in the dry season or the sparse new leaves sprouted during the rainy season are all in order to reduce the evaporation and loss of water in the body. Bottle tree root system is particularly developed, after the rainy season came, as far as possible to absorb water, water storage spare. Generally a big tree can store up to 2 tons of water, like a green water tower. As a result, it does not die during the long dry season.

, like bottle trees and tourist plantains, can provide water for travellers in the desert. As long as people dig a small hole in the tree, fresh thirst-quenching "drinks" can flow out continuously, to solve the shortage of water in the vast sea of sand.