The Mighty Trees of Roatan
Island communities centered their lives around trees for generations. Sometimes villages bordered forests, built homes in the shade of mango trees and planted coconuts to stabilize soil and earn income. The islanders’ relationship with trees was complex and ever evolving. “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in,” goes the anonymous Greek proverb.
As they grew, children played games in the shade of these trees. Some island teachers conducted classes under large trees in their communities. When a community didn’t have the resources to build a school building, classes would be held under the canopies of old, impressive mangoes, ceibas, guanacastes, or rain trees. Island folks would also have parties, hold meetings, and conduct church services in the shade of the trees.
The trees marked important and mundane events. “You would never take that tree down, because it was the center of the community,” said Helen Murphy, an island expat horticulturist. The trees would also be a shelter from the sun and the rain.
Some islanders would bury the placenta of their children underneath a tree in their garden. That connected them both to the earth under their feet and trees above their heads. People’s memories intertwined with the memory of the trees as live, present participants in their lives.
Roatan has many places on the island named after trees. There is Oak Ridge, Mango Creek, Calabash Bight and Mangrove Bight. There is the Oak Hill area where in 1878 the cemetery was created in French Harbour. The entire area was covered by oak trees, but now only the name remains. Trees have shaped the island since before Paya Indians set foot on the ground here about 1,000 years ago.
Norfolk Island Pines Leaning West
While there are a couple of pine species growing on the island, the Norfolk Island pine is not one of them; it is a species of conifer. “It’s not a true pine tree, because it doesn’t produce a cone or even pine,” said Bill Brady, a U.S. expat who has lived on the island since the 1970s. “The Norfolk Island pine would be a bit too flexible to be used as a mast.”
The row of 23 Norfolk Island pines (Araucaria heterophylla) is impressive by many standards. They have grown to an impressive height, lining the road in French Cay, right across from the children’s playground in French Cay. Julie Guerra’s husband planted those trees in 1980. He was José Amilcar Guerra, and he was the island’s emigration officer for decades.
He came to work at Coxen Hole’s immigration office from Tegucigalpa and stayed on the island and had a family. The pines are now 45 years old. A handful of them didn’t make it, but the ones that did are tall, strong and majestic. The tallest trees are about 25 meters tall and leaning to the west. The steady eastern trade winds marked them in such a way.
Memories intertwined with the memory of the trees.
The pines were shipped from La Ceiba, and great care was given to not only plant them, but to keep them alive and growing in the harsh sun and salty air. They had to bring water in 55-gallon drums to water them. “Early every morning,” remembers Julie Guerra, recalling the years of watering the northern Pines. “We lost one or two, but he did replace them.”
Chester Guerra, Julie and José Guerra’s son, had an idea: he decided to come back from the US to his island and start a business, “La Hacienda del Cielo”. In early 2025, he built a petting farm, a marketplace, an aviary and a tropical tree garden. Chester then returned to his native island. “It came from an idea of building a small parrot cage for his two children,” said Guerra.
ESBIR’s Guanacaste
The four Guanacaste (Enterolobium cyclocarpum) trees at Coxen Hole’s ESBIR school entrance have been there for four decades. They were there before the Coxen Hole school was built. They are 120 feet tall and provide great shade for the parking lot at the school.
The Guanacaste trees were planted by Sheryl Galindo, the school’s owner, in the early 1990s. One of ESBIR’s Guanacastes was struck by lightning, and its fallen trunk was made into furniture. One of those furniture pieces is a stunning meeting table used by the ESBIR teachers in the school.
ESBIR’s Guanacaste was struck by lightning.
Guanacaste and Ceiba trees are the biggest island trees by volume of trunk and size of their canopy. Their canopies span 30 meters across, and they, if circumstances allow, grow as tall as 30 meters. “Guanacaste has got all that great seedpod that drops to the ground entirely so the birds are not carrying that around,” says Murphy.
Almond Trees
In the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s in Sandy Bay, everyone would gather on Friday to watch a cow being slaughtered and its meat being cut and prepared for sale. This was done just east of AKR, on Mr. Dyke Grant’s property.
A giant almond tree (Terminalia catappa) served that purpose. The butcher would hoist the carcass of the cow up by one of the almond tree’s limbs. This was a regular, weekly Sandy Bay spectacle and a chance for locals to meet, laugh and gossip. In the mid-2000s, the almond tree was cut down to make room for a house.
Sea Grape Survivors
Sea grape (Coccoloba uvifera) trees are valuable resources and contribute to the longevity of the island’s natural ecosystem. Sea grapes are the most personable trees on the island, with specimens hundreds of years old. Their roots stabilize beach sand, preventing erosion.
These incredible survivors can be taken down by storms and hurricanes but manage to hold on to life. They turn their downward branches into roots and their upward branches into trunks, continuing to live and produce fruit.
The fruits of the sea grape, as they turn from green to purple, are harvested and fermented to make island wine. Their sweet-tasting grapes are sometimes used to make jams and jellies.
Some builders ensure they preserve as many trees as they can. The Watercolors development project in West Bay features sea grapes that are large, old, and full of character. “What also has surprised me is how much visitors and tourists like and appreciate the fact that I am preserving the trees and incorporating them into my project,” said Murphy, who worked on the landscaping of that West Bay project. “My advice to all developers is you will attract a lot more buyers by preserving your trees. Make sure you protect them carefully during your construction.”
Giant Coconut King
The tallest coconut on the island was the king coconut that towered above all others on the beach at Palmetto Bay. It was visible from the water from 200 meters away. In 2023, this coconut giant died and the beach lost its old landmark.
The coconut was more than 80 feet tall, it survived Hurricane Mitch and was likely around 100 years old when it withered and died. It was perhaps the tallest coconut on the island. “I came to the island in 1996; it was already very tall,” said Gary Chamer, a resident of Palmetto Bay Plantation since 1998.
Diseases like White Fly and Lethal Yellowing decimated the coconut groves all over the island. Thousands of coconuts died in the 1990s. “Their name was Jamaican tall; they grew 200 feet tall and would sway side to side. They had hundreds of them in West Bay,” says Brady.
Their roots stabilize beach sand.
A few of the king coconuts survived on Roatan here and there. Some of them were lucky, and some had better genetics and were more resistant to Lethal Yellowing. According to Murphy, maybe 5% of the Jamaican Talls coconuts made it unscathed. They were tall, handsome, and all-around good-for-everything providers. The King coconut is a great all-around tree. “They are good for everything. They are good for water, for milk, for making oil, for all of it,” says Murphy.
This wasn’t the first time the disease pillaged across the region. Lethal Yellowing was already noted in Grand Cayman in 1834 and in Jamaica in 1884. Lethal Yellowing symptoms include premature nut fall, yellowing of the leaves, and defoliation. It affects not only the coconut palms but many palm species.
To remedy the decimation of coconuts in Honduras, in the early 2000s, Standard Fruit and Tela Railroad Company started to bring in coconuts from many different places. They imported a couple of containers of coconuts from Costa Rica — Malaysian Shorts and Pacific Talls. The Malaysian produces a yellow, elongated coconut fruit, and the Pacific Talls is stunningly tall and elongated.
Cemetery Acacias
Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia) Trees compete for resources: water, good soil, sun and air. They angle themselves at precarious angles to take in the sun, even if this means growing at 45 degrees and away from taller trees above them.
The Royal Poinciana acacia, when it blooms with its red flowers, is arguably the most attractive tree on the island. Its red flowers are a beacon of beauty that appears in places all around the island. A couple of them grow by the French Harbour cemetery.
Rubber Fig Tree of AKR
The Anthony’s Key Resort fig (Ficus elastica) is a tree to behold. Four grown men would need to wrap their hands around it. This particular tree was planted by Julio Galindo, AKR’s owner, in 1973 or 1974.
The fig tree is full of surprises. “It’s a rubber tree. Some of the old people would call it the ‘walking tree’ because it spreads so big,” says Galindo. This tree is native to South Asia, can grow to be 150 feet tall, and its trunk maxes out at seven feet in diameter. The tree is getting bigger and grows right next to a bathroom building at the resort. “It busts everything apart — the concrete, the wood,” says Galindo. “We constantly have to expand that every couple of years.”
To live near this type of fig is a challenge, and not everyone likes these giants. “There is nothing good about them,” says Murphy. “They are super messy. The roots are invasive. It is not a pleasure to trim them or cut them.” Indeed, their roots are opportunistic at locating any moisture in the ground. They travel 30 to 40 meters, and their brown, hard roots find their way into the smallest cracks of piping.
Long-Living Oak Trees
There is an impressive, old oak tree (Quercus oleoides) behind the plant nursery in Carniagro in French Harbour. Oaks are a tree species that is more abundant on the southern slopes of Roatan. They thrive in dry forests and pasturelands from Mexico to Costa Rica and reach 50 feet in height.
Their pale gray leaves are evergreen.
Live oaks stay green all the time. They are not deciduous; they don’t drop their leaves all at the same time like other types of oak trees sometimes do. As a consequence, their leaves are very acidic, and this acid prevents grass from growing underneath them. “You can’t really grow a lawn underneath an oak tree,” says Murphy.
The availability of oak made Roatan attractive to pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries. They needed hardwood for ship repairs, and they had plenty in Port Royal. “Hard to work with, but strong,” Murphy said about this lumber.
These oaks are some of the oldest trees we see on the island. They are easily 120 to 150, even 200 years old. Some of the older ones were here when the first Cayman Islander settlers came to the island in the 1830s. “I used to see entire rows of 200-year-old oak trees,” says Mr. Brady. “They used them for masts. It was a strong wood.”
Oak made Roatan attractive to pirates.
Oak lumber was a valuable resource for boat builders in Oak Ridge and French Cay who appreciated the hardness of the lumber that came from oak. “Ceibas, oaks, sea grape, figs and Santa Marias that used to be abundant were used by the boat builders,” said Julio Galindo.
Crawfish Rock Mangos
The mango trees [Mangifera indica] of Crawfish Rock are the center of the community. This is a place to pick up a snack, play football, chat with a neighbor or have a community meeting. You always found people talking in the shade of a mango. “Mango trees were sacred,” said Murphy. “They loved their mango so much.”
The Creole mangoes are abundant and abundantly fruitful. Haden mango is the second most popular mango tree on Roatan. There is even a mango festival in West End organized by Susie Ebanks. “My dad Keiffer Ebanks planted eight papaya mango trees in the mid-1970s,” said Ebanks who remembers making mango jam with her mother. “For many, many years; we were the only ones who had them in West End.”
Old Mangrove of Coxen Hole
White mangrove trees (Avicennia marina) were a part of Coxen Hole since the 1830s, when Cayman Islanders came here to settle. As Coxen Hole becomes more and more urban, the island’s biggest settlement is running high on cement and low on trees. “Anyone who had a private home, they always had plants and trees,” Murphy remembers of Coxen Hole in the 1980s. “Everybody had a lime tree.”
While the white mangrove tree across from the old municipal building in Coxen Hole is probably not the biggest mangrove on the island, it has plenty of character and plenty of size. It has been giving shade to cars parked underneath its branches. The parking fee is Lps. 20 an hour.
The site of the old tree is just a stone’s throw from the old municipal dock, just three or four feet above sea level. It is right in front of the Cooper Building and not far from the old Roatan Municipality. It looks like a tired, venerable giant. One of its giant branches fell to the ground and lifted itself up again — like a resting colossus.
This particular white mangrove looks like it has been in that spot well over 100 years. It looks like a fallen soldier in battle. It is 20 meters tall, and it has a beautiful and weathered trunk: a faded black color.
It has openings and crevices in its weathered trunk. A local builder has abandoned some construction wood next to it, and eight cars can park under its shade easily.
This old mangrove is flanked by almond trees and sea grape trees, not quite as old as the mangrove. The soil is sandy and compact. It has a lot of character. Some of its branches have been sawn off.
Ceibon of La Colonia Higuerito
La ceiba (Ceiba pentandra) is a giant tree that gave its name to Roatan’s maritime gateway on the Honduran mainland. There are a few ceibas on the island, but a particularly impressive specimen grows right across the street from Colonia’s Ramírez Supermarket in Sandy Bay.
When the Sandy Bay colonia canal was dredged out, some tree lovers worried whether the tree would survive. “I was worried they were going to damage the roots of that tree,” said Helen Murphy. “But it seems to be a survivor.”
Heavy construction and disruption of the soil have not helped the tree, which has become a reference point for locals and a bit of a landmark with its giant size. “It is hanging between life and death. Sometimes you see it with leaves,” says Mr. Bill Brady.
The ceiba is now 25 meters tall, and its canopy is over 30 meters across, but that is not the end. “They [ceibas] are medium-fast growers,” says Murphy. “It is 70 to 80, maybe 100 years old, so it’s worth saving.” While some of the Roatan ceibas are big and old, the biggest specimens can be found right across the water in La Ceiba, named after the tree. One of the largest specimens is in the Higuerito neighborhood. “It would take four people to surround it and touch hands,” says Murphy.
