By By Gerald B. O’Connor

Copyright berkshireeagle

Byron E. (Barney) Titcomb likes avocadoes; so, he has grown an avocado tree six feet tall — in one of the U.S. Soil Conservation Service offices at 126 Fenn St., a fitting site.

The trouble is it has never blossomed, and Titcomb, who is the SCS unit supervisor in Berkshire County, is beginning to wonder whether it will.

He’s fairly certain of one thing: it won’t bear any fruit unless he gets a tree of the opposite sex to keep it warm on nights. Next question is which sex?

It’s not the first one he has grown but it’s the biggest and oldest. He started it from an avocado pit three years ago, fixing it on three nails and suspending it in a glass of water. A portion remained exposed.

In two months, it sprouted a root on the bottom and a shoot on the top and he was in business. First it went into a regular flower pot but has been transplanted three times since. Now it stands in a big wooden tub next to the window overlooking Fenn Street and has become a conversation piece.

Passersby have even walked upstairs to ask what it is.

“Most are kind of dumbfounded,” says Titcomb. “Some want to know what an avocado is.”

Well, avocadoes grow in tropical or subtropical climates like those of California, Arizona or Florida. Colloquially, avocadoes are known as alligator pears and are usually inserted in salads.

To Titcomb, it doesn’t matter whether they’re in salads or not. He’ll eat them any time.

Has he a green thumb? “No, I don’t think so,” Titcomb says. “The main reason I’ve grown them is because they’re hard to raise. And they’re a curiosity, so to speak.”

They’re more of a curiosity than most people think. The name, avocado, is traced back to one of the Aztec languages of Central America in which the name, Ahuacacuahuitl (you pronounce it, our Aztec is a bit rusty), is derived from its use as an aphrodisiac.