Cecropia

Trumpet tree is an awkwardly branched, open-crowned tree with alternate leaves about a foot wide clustered at tips of inwardly curving stems. It can grow to 70 ft tall, but most trees are much smaller. The leaves have 7-11 palmate lobes and are borne on long petioles which attach near the center of the leaf. Leaves are rough-textured and dark green above and felty white underneath. The smooth gray bark on young trees is ringed with leaf scars. The flowers are small inconspicuous yellow catkins.

The trees are drought-tolerant; under stress they may briefly lose their leaves. CECROPIA grows on limestone soils as well as on acid sands, but the soil
should be well drained.

Cecropias are widely planted for tropical landscape effects. The young buds may be eaten as a cooked vegetable. The corrosive and astringent latex is used against warts, calluses, herpes, ulcers, dysentery, and venereal diseases.

A tea made from the leaves is widely employed as a cure for asthma and thought to be useful in treating a wide variety of other ailments including liver disease, cardiovascular problems, Parkinson’s disease, and snakebite.