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''Celtis tala'' (or ''
Celtis ehrenbergiana ''Celtis ehrenbergiana'', called the desert hackberry or spiny hackberry, is a plant species that has long been called ''C. pallida'' by many authors, including in the "Flora of North America" database. It is native to Arizona, Florida, New Mexic ...
''), known as tala, is a medium size deciduous tree, native to tropical and subtropical
South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
. With small to medium-sized spines, its one of the main components of the
Gran Chaco The Gran Chaco or Dry Chaco is a sparsely populated, hot and semiarid lowland natural region of the Río de la Plata basin, divided among eastern Bolivia, western Paraguay, northern Argentina, and a portion of the Brazilian states of Mato Gro ...
prairies and certain areas of the
Argentinian Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or ( feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, ...
pampa.


Morphology

The tala is a medium to large sized tree, sometimes reaching 12m high. According to water availability it may become arboreus or shrubby. It prefers dry or slightly moist, well drained soil. When arboreus the trunk is rather tortuous, nearing 40 cm in diameter. When shrubby, it produces several branched trunks of 20 cm in diameter. Its birch is light colored, gray to brown. The Tala tends to branch abundantly, producing a dense mesh of branches in zigzag patterns, with strong spines in the foliar axis, 1,5 or more, cm long. The leaves are alternate, peciolate and simple, their base rounded and the margin serrated in the apical region. Leaves are trinervate,
acuminate The following is a list of terms which are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (a single leaf blade or lamina) or compound (with several leaflets). The edge of the leaf may be regular ...
, of a dark green colour. This tree flowers in spring, producing inconspicuous yellowish pentamerous flowers. Since it presents hermaphrodite flowers, it is self-fertile. Tala fruit is a small
drupe In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is an indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pit'', ''stone'', or '' pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed (''kernel'') ...
, 1 cm wide that hangs in short clusters.Biloni, José Santos (1990), Árboles autóctonos argentinos, Buenos Aires: Tipográfica Editora Argentina. Not very fleshy and with a proportionally large seed within, it is however very sweet and pleasant to the taste.


Usage

Though edible by humans there is no market or habit of consumption, these fruits are mostly part of birds and several insect species diets. It is appreciated by lumbers since its wood is tough and rather heavy. Produces excellent wood fuel. The tala rather small trunk allows only small carved objects be obtained. It is used in hand tool handles and small crafts.


References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15742470 tala Trees of Argentina