One of the more splendid places I found to spend time at Finca Hermosa was beside the pool, beneath a marvelous old Carob tree {ceratonia siliqua}.
I love gazing at the trees beautiful, old, twisted bark.
The evergreen Carob trees are a prominent ingredient in the verdant landscape of Mallorca. You may have heard about Carob before as a low-fat substitute for chocolate, mostly available at health food stores.
For ages, the pods from the carob tree have been used to feed livestock, and, when options were limited, they have also been consumed by humans.
The most interesting thing about this tree is that each of the seeds inside the carob pod are always the exact same weight, 200 milligrams. Because of this consistency, the seeds have been used as units of weight for small quantities of gold and precious gemstones since early roman times. The weight of one carat is precisely 200 milligrams, or 0.2 grams.
I loved learning this tidbit of botanical history.
Wow! Cool… I had no idea what carob pods looked like:)
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