Upas tree

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Upas tree
Upas tree (Antiaris toxicaria)

Upas tree ( Antiaris toxicaria )

Systematics
Eurosiden I
Order : Rose-like (rosales)
Family : Mulberry family (Moraceae)
Tribe : Castilleae
Genre : Antiaris
Type : Upas tree
Scientific name of the  genus
Antiaris
Lesch.
Scientific name of the  species
Antiaris toxicaria
Lesch.

The Upas tree ( Antiaris toxicaria ) is the only species of the Antiaris plant genus within the mulberry family (Moraceae). Other common names are Javanese poison tree , Borneo tree , Java poison tree or Ipobaum and Antiarbaum .

description

illustration
Unripe fruits and leaves
“The Upas, or Poison Tree, on Java Island” - oil painting by Francis Danby , around 1820, Victoria and Albert Museum , London.
Branch with alternate, two-line, simple leaves.

Vegetative characteristics

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The Upas tree grows as a fast-growing, semi-evergreen and monoecious , very large tree and reaches heights of about 40 meters or less often up to 60 meters. It sometimes forms high buttress roots , the trunk diameter can reach up to 2 meters. The bark is whitish-gray to brownish. Antiaris toxicaria is good self-lopping (self-pruning), d. H. it drops unproductive or shadowy twigs and even larger branches with clean scars → abscission .

The short-stalked, alternate and two-line arranged, simple, on the one side shiny and leathery, underneath lighter and duller leaves are with a length of up to 20 centimeters and a width of about 8-10 centimeters elliptical, oblong or ovoid and obovate to - eilanzettlich. The lamina is often a little uneven. The leaves are pointed, rounded or pointed to pointed or tapered, the base is rounded to blunt or sometimes slightly heart-shaped, the strong veins are parallel-forward pinnate. The leaf margins are completely to finely notched, serrated and partly hairy (ciliate). Also the short stalks and the underside of the nerve and the main nerve partly also on the upper side, as well as the small branches are more or less hairy. There are small, sloping stipules .

Generative characteristics

The small male flowers are several, in small, fine hairy stalked, mushroom-shaped, greenish head ( sham flowers ) with many small bracts forming a involucre at the edge and also sit at the bottom of the fleshy soil together. The individual flowers consist of about three to five, fine-haired, ladle-shaped tepals which are inclined with the tip over the two to four stamens , with large anthers and very short filaments. There are up to eight heads together.

The larger, greenish and fine-haired female flowers without a flower cover are mostly single, they consist of several, small bracts that have grown together to form an enclosing, fleshy calyx. The (semi) Upper permanent ovary is adherent to the involucre and has a bifurcated, pen-white with very long, above (scar) branches.

The furry, fine-haired, stone fruit-like, solitary, fleshy and edible false fruits are orange to reddish and ellipsoidal to rounded and about 1.5–2 centimeters long. The large nucleus is round and light brownish, with a thin endocarp that surrounds the seeds. When the kernels are shaken, it rattles due to the detachment of the embryo from the seed coat .

The flowering time is in March and April.

The chromosome number is 2n = 24 or 28

Occurrence

Antiaris toxicaria occurs in the tropics of Asia and Africa, as well as Australia and Melanesia including Tonga , especially in southern India , Sri Lanka , Myanmar , Malaysia , Indonesia and southern China . There are five subspecies:

  • Antiaris toxicaria subsp. toxicaria
  • Antiaris toxicaria subsp. macrophylla (R.Br.) CC Berg
  • Antiaris toxicaria subsp. humbertii (Leandri) CC Berg
  • Antiaris toxicaria subsp. madagascariensis (H.Perrier) CC Berg
  • Antiaris toxicaria subsp. welwitschii (Engl.) CC Berg
    • Antiaris toxicaria subsp. welwitschii var. africana A. Chev.
    • Antiaris toxicaria subsp. welwitschii var. usambarensis (Engl.) CC Berg
    • Antiaris toxicaria subsp. welwitschii var. welwitschii (Engl.) Corner

use

The burning, hot, yellowish-white milky sap from the bark of Antiaris toxicaria is highly poisonous and was used in Southeast Asia as an arrow poison (Upas Antiar). Occurring in latex cardenolide - glycosides lead to cardiac arrest . The toxins are also found in the seeds. The tree's toxicity has been the subject of legends, according to which the tree is so toxic that birds die if they just fly over it. It was also claimed that people who approached a flowering tree would have died.

The milky juice is also used for various medicinal purposes. The bark bast can be used for coarser wickerwork, fabric and paper.

The fruits are edible.

The relatively soft wood of the Upas tree is also used to produce wood ( Ako , Vawi , Kirundu wood ).

Systematics

Antiaris toxicaria was published in 1810 by Jean-Baptiste Leschenault de La Tour in Annales du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle , volume 16, p. 478, plate 22. Antiaris toxicaria is the only species of the genus Antiaris in the tribe Castilleae within the family Moraceae .

literature

  • Richard F. Gustafson: The Upas Tree: Pushkin and Erasmus Darwin. In: PMLA. 75 (1), 1960, pp. 101-109, doi : 10.2307 / 460432 .
  • Sir Henry Yule : UPAS. In: Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive. New Edition, J. Murray, London 1903, pp. 952–959 (detailed description of the creation of legends about the Upas tree in European literature of the early modern period), archive.org .
  • D. Louppe, M. Brinck, AA Oteng-Amoako: Plant Resources of Tropical Africa. 7 (1), Timbers 1 , Prota, 2008, ISBN 978-90-5782-209-4 , pp. 75-79, online at prota4u.org, accessed January 30, 2018.
  • Antiaris toxicaria in the Flora of China, Vol. 5.

Web links

Commons : Antiaris toxicaria  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Antiaris toxicaria in the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN), USDA , ARS , National Genetic Resources Program. National Germplasm Resources Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland. Retrieved September 18, 2013.
  2. ^ Georg August Pritzel , Carl Jessen : The German folk names of plants. New contribution to the German linguistic treasure. Philipp Cohen, Hannover 1882, p. 34, archive.org .
  3. ↑ Friedrich Holl : Dictionary of German plant names. Keyser, 1833, p. 2.
  4. ^ C. (Cornelis) C. Berg, EJH Corner, HP Nooteboom: Flora Malesiana. Series I: Seed Plants , Vol. 17, Pt. 2, 2005, Review in Taxon. 55 (1), 2006, p. 251, DOI: 10.2307 / 25065564 .
  5. ↑ Poonam Agrawal et al: Quantification of Convallatoxin in Antiaris toxicaria Leuschseeds by RP-HPLC. In: TACL. 4 (3), 2014, pp. 172–177, DOI: 10.1080 / 22297928.2014.925821 .
  6. ↑ W. Blaschek, R. Hansel u. a .: Hager's Handbook of Pharmaceutical Practice. Volume 2: Drugs A – K , 5th edition, Springer, 1998, ISBN 978-3-642-63794-0 , p. 133 f, limited preview in Google book search.
  7. ↑ Der Knaur, Universal Lexikon. Volume 10, Lexicographical Institute Munich 1992/93, p. 5296.
  8. ↑ Antiaris toxicaria at Tropicos.org. Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, accessed September 18, 2013.