The Tribune

CONTINUING our look at The Bahamas’ national symbols, The Tribune focuses on the national flower and the national tree.

The Yellow Elder was chosen as the National Flower of The Bahamas because it is native to the islands and it blooms throughout the year.

Selection of the yellow elder over many other flowers came through the combined popular vote of members of all four of New Providence’s garden clubs of the 1970s – the Nassau Garden Club, the Carver Garden Club, the International Garden Club, and the YWCA Garden Club.

They reasoned that other flowers grown here, such as the bougainvillea, hibiscus, and poinciana, had already been chosen as the national flowers of other countries.

The yellow elder was then unclaimed by other countries. It is now also the national flower of the United States Virgin Islands.

The flower is yellow and trumpet-shaped, attracts bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.

The Lignum vitae, meaning tree of life, or wood of life, is from the genus Guaicum (caltrop family or Zygophyllaceae) and is the National Tree of The Bahamas.

The extremely hard and heavy self-lubricating wood is especially adapted for bearings or bushings of propeller shafts on steamships, and also serves for bearings in steel mills, for bowling balls, and pulleys.

For many years, shipments of the wood were made from The Bahamas to the United Kingdom and the United States by the old New Providence firm of Duncombe and Butler.

Apart from its industrial uses, the bark of the tree is used for medicinal purposes, and many Bahamians throughout the islands steep the bark and drink it as a tonic for creating energy as an aphrodisiac.