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The Exotic Rainforest
Plants in the Exotic Rainforest Collection

 
Pimenta dioica (L.) Merr.
Allspice
 

I'd be willing to venture I've got the only one of these trees in Arkansas!  Sometimes I feel guilty for having it locked up in an atrium.  We lived on the island of Jamaica for 2 years in 1979 and 1980.  On the main highway between Montego Bay and Ocho Rios is an enormous grove of trees which everyone calls Pimento.  I'm going to show my ignorance here, but I always thought they were growing those little red things that you find in olives and "pimento cheese"!  Wrong.  Pimento is Spanish for Allspice.  And also pepper which can be confusing if you're in the kitchen and need some spice!  You know allspice.  It's the stuff you've got in your kitchen cabinet that smells so good at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's famous for its  aroma and smells like a combination of cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg.  Allspice is called pimento because the Spanish mistook the fruit for black pepper, which the Spanish referred to as pimienta.  Allspice is the only spice that is grown exclusively in the Western Hemisphere.  Go ahead, run to the kitchen and get the can.  Take a sniff.  It's wonderful!  And all we have to do is go in the atrium and pick a leaf and snap it in half to enjoy the aroma.  Our tree is now 7 years old and should be 20 feet tall if it were in Jamaica (it's about 5 feet).  But it's in Arkansas.  And I've probably stunted it's growth.  That's OK.  It's healthy and we give it very good care.  And we really enjoy snapping off those leaves!

 
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