J ROGERS' amusing letter, showing our farm stall complete with the 'Locally grown sausages' sign gave us much pleasure (September 23).

We can, however, save gardening writer Gina Parkinson any trouble in answering the query.

Anyone visiting our stall tomorrow - part of the Festival Of Food in Parliament Street - can taste the sausages and see, on the front of our freezer an excellent picture of Kigelia pinnata, otherwise known as the Sausage Tree.

Here is an extract of an encyclopaedia entry on the same:

(Kigelia pinnata), tropical tree, the only species of its genus (family Bignoniaceae). It grows 20ft to 40ft high and bears sausage-like fruits, 1ft to 2ft long, which hang down on long, cord-like stalks. It is native to Africa.

The flowers do not bloom until nightfall, when they emit a mouse-like odour, and bats visit them for nectar and pollen. By morning the flowers have fallen.

A greenhouse may be the best place for Mr Rogers to grow the sausages, but we have no difficulty in producing them all over the farm because we have just the right conditions - but these are a closely-guarded secret.

Jen Willmore,

Vicarage Farm,

Claxton, York.