Living On Three Continents: The Pitfalls Of Spring
Susan Siddeley discovers that one needs to be particularly polite to the Litre tree to avoid receiving two lovely black eyes.
Two lovely, black eyes, a swollen face and arms covered with itching welts ... not for telling a man he was wrong, but for not addressing him correctly!
In Yorkshire, the delights of spring include spotting a crocus, hearing a skylark, or coming across a spread of bluebells in an oak wood. Spring in Chile is just as welcome and refreshing - once you get used to it starting in September, when those of us raised in the North are thinking of getting back into our cardigans. Down there, spring is seeing the normally bare, brown hills, sprout a fuzz of soft grass and listening to the trill of courting doves in the garden.
But, in Chile a couple of years ago, I met a new face. It belonged to Señor Litre, a shrub-like tree with glossy oval leaves, which flourishes amongst stands of espino and peumo in the countryside around Santiago. Mr Litre is best known for the fertilizing properties of his leaf mould, which entrepreneurs bag and sell by the roadside. I’d even bought them, but I’d never been introduced to the producer.
On the occasion I made his acquaintance, it wasn’t just that the sensitive Mr Litre failed to receive a proper greeting from me. He was actually assaulted. I’d been instructed to clear a view on top of a local hill for a theodolite reading. He was in the way and needed flattening. Arms and legs flailing, I waded in.
“Good Lord, whatever happened? You look like a chimney sweep who’s been dragged through a hedge backwards!” laughed the expedition leader when I arrived back home.
“Que le paso?” exclaimed the farm manager, when he found me licking my wounds. He was the one, who then explained that Litre leaves contain nerves, which when broken, have a toxic effect on human skin. But the knowledge that this bush needs approaching with caution came too late for me. Too late also, came the formula for avoiding trouble should a close encounter be inevitable.
If you need to deal with a litre tree you must say “Buenos Días señor Litre, Como esta? This polite salutation, and in my case, a “Please may I rearrange you?” might have saved the day.
A packet of anti-histamine tablets helped, but a week later with swellings still erupting, I realised an apology was necessary. So I climbed back up the slope with its flowering shrubs and sweet-smelling lilies to right the wrong.
“I’m so sorry dear bush. I had no idea. When my husband asks me to help him with his fieldwork, I’m used to following instructions absolutely and without question. Please forgive me, and may your flowers be visited by thousands of bees during the upcoming season.”
I crept away and two days later my skin was as soft and clear as a baby’s bottom.
