Easy Pickings (standard:non fiction, 220 words)
Author: Juggernaut	Added: Jul 19 2012	Views/Reads: 2968/0	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A legumaneous tree that supports itself to grow on poor soils and produce sweet pods for easy pickings. The seed cover is sweet and delicious. Lets call this tree Sweet Pods or Easy Pickings not Monkey Pods.

Easy Pickings 

Subba Rao 

It is a leguminous tree that grows wild on poor soils with 

little rain where other plants have tough time surviving.  The tree 

makes its own food like any other legume or bean family plants.  Its 

long pods are coiled and serve as poor man's food. Unlike green beans, 

only the contents of the pod, the black shiny seeds and its fleshy pulp 

covering are edible.  Thick, fleshy and sweet pulp is the tastiest part 

of the pod. When ripe, the greenish pink spiral pods split open to 

expose whitish pink pulp.  Rich in nutrients and sweet, the pulp is 

easy pickings for animals particularly monkeys thus the tree is 

unfairly called the Monkeypod tree.   The seeds are also edible though 

the seed pulp covering is mostly eaten for its sweet taste and mouth 

feel. Handful of well ripe spiral pods would satisfy a hungry man. The 

thorns on the tree make it a hedge plant to keep animals out.  The tree 

wood is hard and pliable to make fancy gift items. The tree that needs 

no cultivation depends little on rain and soil nutrients, and produces 

plentiful sweet pods for easy pickings deserves a name like sweet pods 

or Easy Pickings not Monkeypod, Manila Tamarind or Madras Thorn tree. 

How these bizarre names came about? 


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