The carob ( KARR-əb; Ceratonia siliqua) is a flowering evergreen tree or shrub in the Caesalpinioideae subfamily of the legume family, Fabaceae. The carob tree is native to the Mediterranean region and the Middle East. It is widely cultivated for its edible fruit, which takes the form of seed pods, and as an ornamental tree in gardens and landscapes. Spain is its largest producer, followed by Italy and Morocco.
Carob pods have a number of culinary applications, including a powder or chips that can be used as a chocolate alternative. The seeds are used to produce locust bean gum or carob gum, a common thickening agent used in food processing.
Description
A leaflet of the leaf of the carob tree
The carob tree grows up to 15 metres (50 feet) tall. The crown is broad and semispherical, supported by a thick trunk with rough brown bark and sturdy branches. Its leaves are 10 to 20 centimetres (4 to 8 inches) long, alternate, pinnate, and may or may not have a terminal leaflet. It is frost-tolerant to roughly −7 °C (19 °F).
Most carob trees are dioecious, so strictly male trees do not produce fruit, but some are hermaphroditic. When the trees blossom in autumn, the flowers are small and numerous, spirally arranged along the inflorescence axis in catkin-like racemes borne on spurs from old wood and even on the trunk (cauliflory); they are pollinated by both wind and insects. The male flowers smell like human semen, an odor that is caused in part by amines.
The fruit is a legume (also known commonly, but less accurately, as a pod), that is elongated, compressed, straight, or curved, and thickened at the sutures. The pods take a full year to develop and ripen. When the sweet, ripe pods eventually fall to the ground, they are eaten by various mammals, such as swine, thereby dispersing the hard inner seed in the excrement.
The seeds of the carob tree contain leucodelphinidin, a colourless flavanol precursor related to leucoanthocyanidins.
