Holm oak
The so-called wood horn, carob, karupia or kuntoroudia, which the ancients called keronia, Egyptian fig or hornet. Its fruit, which today is called antler, carob, carob, stump or kunthoudi was called Egyptian fig or horn. Somewhere it is also mentioned under the name xylogliko.
This tree is well known, it seems to have originated in Asia Minor and perhaps Cyrene, the present Barca of Tripoli (coast of North Africa) from where it probably migrated, cultivated and acclimatized and became indigenous first in the islands of the Aegean seas and then in the other Greek countries of Europe, where in many they are indigenous today. We infer this from the fact that Theophrastus, the first to mention it, says expressly that in his time it grew in Syria, Ionia and Cnidus and Rhodes; and that the Ionians called it keronia, and some Egyptian figs “dimarticotes” erroneously because it did not grow anywhere in Egypt. However, although, according to the testimony of Theophrastus, the hornbeam did not grow in Egypt at that time, it is not improbable that hornbeams were transported through it from Cyrene to Greece, and that is why they were called Egyptian figs by some.
It was introduced to Italy by the Greeks, as evidenced by the names used by the Romans for this tree and fruit. The xylokeratea was called ceratonia, i.e. ceratonia, and the fruit siliqua graeca, i.e. Greek pod.
In any case, this tree before the birth of Christ does not seem to have been particularly widespread, until today, on the European shores of the Mediterranean and especially on the islands of the Aegean Sea and Greece. The antlers are mentioned as being used, as they are now, for the feeding of animals, and especially of swine, and even then they were considered but modest food for man.
As Theophylaktos mentions, there were many hornbeams growing in Syria and Judea.
And then it was more commonly called keratea, and not by its Ionian name keronia; then it took the present name xylokratea and carob. The latter is Arabic (Kharrub), and prevailed in almost the whole of Europe, because it seems that during the Middle Ages, when the Arabs were the masters of almost the entire Mediterranean, they pushed and extended to the shores of this sea the cultivation of this tree and its use of the wrist.
So today the French call the tree Caroubier and the fruit caroube, carobe or caroyge (as well as féce de Pythagore). The Italians call it catoba or carruba and the carobo tree, carrabo or carrubio. The Spanish call it Algarrobo and the English carob-tree and the fruit carob-bean.
However, in addition to the Arabic name, the strange name Saint John’s bread tree (French arbre àpain de Saint Jean, English Saint John’s bread tree, German Joannis Brodbaum) prevailed among the Europeans, which seems to have arisen from an incorrect tradition, during which the locusts mentioned by the evangelists Matthew and Mark, which John the Baptist ate in the desert with wild honey, were nothing but hornets.
Today the hornbeam is found native or cultivated on almost all the warm coasts of the Mediterranean. From the Spanish it also migrated to Mexico and some parts of South America. It is a long-lived, medium-sized, evergreen, slow-growing tree that grows in the most infertile, stony and dry soils and does not withstand the cold above -7°C to -8°C.
It has leaves composed of 4, 6, or 8 leaflets, ovate, entire, smooth, scissate, deep green, flowers small, red in the form of botrya, polygamous, that is, there are trees that have only male flowers and others that have only female ones and others that they are male and hermaphrodite (flowers that have both male and female organs). We must pay special attention to this as it is the basis of the cultivation of this tree for the production of fruit.
The fruit of the carob, i.e. the wood horn, is a flattened pod, 10-20 cm long and 2-3 cm wide, scutellum, podmelas, and more or less in the form of a horn (that is why it was called kération by the ancients), full of sugary flesh that surrounds the hard, ceramic-colored seeds that lie within it lengthwise and in rows. It covers many human needs as we will see.
There are few varieties of carob. According to the growers they are:
the fruitless, which is not actually a variety but simply the one that has male flowers and serves as a rootstock for grafting,
the wild one, which has wooden horns, thin, arched, woody, 10-15 cm long, which ripen earlier than the other varieties and are almost useless, serves as an ornamental tree (of tree rows) and as a rootstock for grafting,
the semi-wild (Ceratonia siliqua vulgaris – Risso), which has abundant but fibrous fruits useful only for animal feed and for distillation;
the tame (Ceratonia siliqua lalissima-Risso) the preferably cultivated one which has fewer fruits than the previous one, but long, wide, thick, very sugary, therefore distilled, which are happily eaten not only by animals but also by humans .
Natural environment – Carob cultivation
The carob thrives in climates where citrus fruits grow without problem, but it is also found native in colder countries; however, it is not found beyond the zone that includes the olive.
It prefers calcareous soils, grows even in the most stony and dry soils and is a boon to countries that are barren, because it provides a relatively abundant and nutritious fruit suitable for feeding animals and humans. But it does not grow as well as in the fertile and relatively cool places, where it grows very quickly.
Carob is propagated only by seeding and grafting. Their sowing is preferably done in April when there is no longer any fear of being affected by the late spring frosts. For this purpose, the seeds extracted from the pods are soaked for 3 or 4 days, in water that is renewed daily. They are sown either on the spot every three or four, or thrown into seedbeds prepared in deep vessels and liberally fertilized. Because the carob has a vertical root and it is difficult to take root when transplanted, it is preferable to sow it in situ, because this way they acquire the position in which the trees are going to stay and bear fruit.
In dry climates, the preservation of the vertical root is of great importance, because it penetrates earlier into the lower layers of the soil and draws water from them, which do not have or is not enough in the superficial layers, where, at least in the first years, the roots of the plants are limited transplanted trees. After months or a year of in-situ seeding, only the strongest plants are removed at each seeding site.
Those that have been sown in greens as soon as they reach a height of 4-5 cm are weeded and thinned, the smaller and weaker ones are removed, so that those that will remain in the green have a distance of 5-10 cm between them. Before and after thinning the greens are watered and irrigation, especially in summer, every 15 days at least. Four or five days after each watering the greens should be weeded to prevent the young plants from suffocating the growing parasitic grasses. In August they are pruned, i.e. the emerging shoots from the sides of the central axis are removed with a sharp knife so that its trunk grows quickly.
