Nimloth's fruit - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Alfirin · 03-30-2011, 06:57 PM

This is another of my rather trivial threads, please bear with me.
Somewhere in this forum I was informed the Nimloth and its progeny (like the white tree of gondor) were cherry trees, which means that presumably what Isuildur brought with him to Gondor was one of the cherries or more likey one of its pits ( the actual cherry itself would presumably have long since rotted on the boat trip. My question is as follows, we know that that cherry is significant and important, but how "rare" do you think it was? What I am trying to get at is was Nimloth like a fruting type tree which produced a LOT of cherries of was it more along the lines of a flowering cherry, where fruit production is rare (indeed for many floweing cherries fruit production is considered a defect) . Obviosly It'd have to make some fruit or Isildur would have had nothing to pick. Also once you get past the mysticism the tree Aragon found (with Gandalfs help) was likey decended from a pit from the previos tree (this also might explain how the tree could be so young, a pit could remain dormant a long time in the ground before sprouting. But the reverence shown to the fruit and the way the story is told seem to suggest that fruit on nimloths and it's progeny is a rare occurance. But my real question is, if Nimloth's strain was in the former category, do you think people actually well.....ate the fruit. I can imagine this might be a rather ritualized (the ruler and nobles eat of the fruit of the tree that is the symbol of the kingdom, and thus meaphoically "bind" themselves closer to it. But on the other hand given how important those trees were, they might be considered too sacred for such a common use, and eating fruit from them might be tanatmount to blasphemy. Your opinion?

03-30-2011, 06:57 PM	#1
Alfirin Shade of Carn Dûm Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 435	Nimloth's fruit This is another of my rather trivial threads, please bear with me. Somewhere in this forum I was informed the Nimloth and its progeny (like the white tree of gondor) were cherry trees, which means that presumably what Isuildur brought with him to Gondor was one of the cherries or more likey one of its pits ( the actual cherry itself would presumably have long since rotted on the boat trip. My question is as follows, we know that that cherry is significant and important, but how "rare" do you think it was? What I am trying to get at is was Nimloth like a fruting type tree which produced a LOT of cherries of was it more along the lines of a flowering cherry, where fruit production is rare (indeed for many floweing cherries fruit production is considered a defect) . Obviosly It'd have to make some fruit or Isildur would have had nothing to pick. Also once you get past the mysticism the tree Aragon found (with Gandalfs help) was likey decended from a pit from the previos tree (this also might explain how the tree could be so young, a pit could remain dormant a long time in the ground before sprouting. But the reverence shown to the fruit and the way the story is told seem to suggest that fruit on nimloths and it's progeny is a rare occurance. But my real question is, if Nimloth's strain was in the former category, do you think people actually well.....ate the fruit. I can imagine this might be a rather ritualized (the ruler and nobles eat of the fruit of the tree that is the symbol of the kingdom, and thus meaphoically "bind" themselves closer to it. But on the other hand given how important those trees were, they might be considered too sacred for such a common use, and eating fruit from them might be tanatmount to blasphemy. Your opinion?