Brazilian araucaria
| Brazilian araucaria | ||||||||||||
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Brazilian araucarias ( Araucaria angustifolia ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Araucaria angustifolia | ||||||||||||
| ( Bertol. ) Kuntze |
The Brazilian araucarias or brazilian pine ( Araucaria angustifolia ) is a species of the genus of the araucarias ( Araucaria ) in the family of the araucarias (Araucariaceae). Of the 19 species of araucaria, it has the greatest economic importance.
The Brazilian araucaria is a (dominant) forest-forming tree in the high altitudes in the south of the Atlantic rainforests of Brazil , as well as the neighboring countries . Like the other forests near the coast, the araucaria forests of Brazil were and are subject to extensive exploitation and settlement in accordance with their importance in terms of timber industry, and only remnants have been preserved in near-natural form .
description
Habitus
The Brazilian araucaria is an evergreen tree that can grow to heights of 30 to 40, rarely up to 50 meters and trunk diameters of more than 1 meter. The Brazilian araucaria also spreads with stick rashes. There are horizontal branches on the straight, cylindrical trunk. The branches are in whorls of 4 to 8. Trees in closed stands are unbranched up to a height of 25 m. The shaft volume is 10 to 20, in exceptional cases up to 50 m³, about a quarter of which is accounted for by the bark. The shape of the tree canopy changes significantly with the age of the tree. Young trees have a conical, densely needled crown. Old trees have a flattened, umbrella-shaped crown that only has tufted needles at the ends of the uppermost branches. The branches branching out at right angles from the trunk are lively in groups of 4 to 8 branches. The tree can reach an age of up to 600 years.
bark
The up to 15 centimeters thick, gray-brown bark of the trunk is finely scaly, horizontally banded and resinous. About a quarter of the shaft volume is accounted for by the bark.
Wood
The sapwood of the Brazilian araucarias has a light yellow color, while the heartwood is light to reddish brown. It has no resin ducts. It has a density of 0.54 to 0.63 g / cm³. The grain is predominantly straight and the wood structure is homogeneous with almost invisible annual rings.
The wood must be carefully dried in order drying damage to be avoided. However, it is easy to work with, stains and polishes well, and accepts color well. It is used, among other things, for internal stairs, for cabinet making, for drawer side panels, decorative strips and shop fittings.
Foliage
The light to dark green leaves are about 3 to 6 centimeters long and 4 to 10 millimeters wide at the base. They have a triangular to lanceolate shape with a visible central rib and a piercing tip. On both sides of the leaf there are stomata in irregular rows. The leaves are on the tree for about 10 to 15 years.
Flowers, cones and seeds
The Brazilian araucarias are usually dioeciously separated sexes ( dioecious ), rarely single sexed ( monoecious ). She becomes manable at around 15 years of age and is windy ( anemophilia ). The cylindrical, brown male cones are 8 to 15 inches long and 1 to 4 inches wide with overlapping scales. They are terminally on leafy side branches. The wingless pollen ripens in September / October. The spherical female cones are 18 to 25 inches tall and about 13 inches wide. They are terminally on short branches. The spherical cones are initially green, later brown and (when fresh) weigh about 1 kilogram; they need 2 to 3 years of maturity. The cones are noticeably large, they have a diameter of 10 to 30 centimeters. One cone contains 20 to 150 lanceolate-bulbous seeds . The winged, light brown seeds are 2 to 8 inches long and about 2 inches wide. The thousand grain weight varies between 4.7 and 9.1 kilograms. The seeds are edible similar to pine nuts. The natural spread of the seeds mostly occurs through agoutis ( (Dasyprocta) ), azure ravens ( Cyanocorax caeruleus ), cap blue ravens ( Cyanocorax chrysops ) and pigeon- necked amazons ( Amazona vinacea ). Particularly in the area of distribution in the state of Minas Gerais are also toucans ( Ramphastidae ) and pyrrhura ( Pyrrhura ) involved. Germination is hypogean ; the seedlings have two seed leaves ( cotyledons ).
Distribution and locations
The Brazilian araucaria is native to the mountainous region ( Serra do Mar ) in southeastern Brazil, northeastern Argentina and eastern Paraguay .
In Brazil, they are found at altitudes between 500 and 1,800 meters in subtropical forests, mainly in the states : Paraná , Santa Catarina , Rio Grande do Sul (where 1,800 meters corresponds to the summit height in these states), and occasionally in São Paulo , Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro . In northern Argentina and Paraguay it inhabits altitudes between 500 and 2,300 meters.
In subtropical areas it is practically all over the world as an ornamental tree in gardens and parks. The Brazilian araucaria can only tolerate light frosts; it is up to about -5 to -8 ° C C hardy .
The Brazilian araucaria occurs in a humid, temperate, subtropical climate with no dry season. The extreme temperatures fluctuate between +35 ° C and −12 ° C. The precipitation is between 1,200 and 2,400 mm per year. Growth is heavily dependent on the availability of nitrogen and phosphorus in the soil. It does not occur on waterlogged and shallow soils. The pH should be above 3. In its natural range, the Brazilian araucaria forms a closed upper class, under which more than 200 tree and shrub species live.
Use and overexploitation
Local Indians collected the cones and harvested the seeds for food. To get the cones from tall trees, blunt arrows were shot at them. The seeds were roasted for eating; they are still used today as food.
The Europeans who came to Brazil quickly recognized the value of the timber of the Brazilian araucaria. Forest areas were released from 1511 and in the 18th century. As a result, the araucarias were quickly cleared; the wood was mainly used in shipbuilding and as construction timber . An even more radical loss of the jungle began with the introduction of the railroad and later the large trucks. This led to the rapid destruction of the primeval forests from the 1870s to the 1940s. After that, mainly forest crops were planted for wood production, not only in Brazil, but in subtropical areas worldwide. Today the wood is mainly used as furniture wood and to build musical instruments. It can also be used as industrial wood in all areas. Most of the trees that are used economically today come from plantations.
Pests and diseases
In its natural range, the Brazilian araucaria is hardly threatened by diseases and pests. Large-scale monocultures, however, led to a mass multiplication of the pests. In the case of infestations with leaf cutter ants of the genera Atta and Acromyrmex as well as with grasshoppers , total crop failures can occasionally occur. Old stocks are occasionally caterpillars of the tensioner Fulgurodes sartinaria and the moth Dirphia araucariae stripped bare. The seeds are often hollowed out by the caterpillars of the small butterfly Laspeyresia araucariae . Old trees sometimes suffer from stem rot and white rot caused by Formes lignosus and Schmetterlingstramete ( Trametes versicolor caused).
Forest fires only pose a threat to young plants, as the old trees are protected by their thick bark.
Hazard and protection
The Brazilian araucaria is listed on the IUCN Red List as "critically endangered". The greatest threat is overexploitation. Of the 250,000 square kilometers of the original primeval forest of the Brazilian araucaria, less than 1,000 square kilometers have been preserved. The largest remaining protected areas are in the vicinity of General Carneiro and Bituruna . There are deposits developed for tourism in the Brazilian Iguaçu National Park .
Systematics
The Italian botanist Antonio Bertoloni described this species in 1819 under the taxon Columbea angustifolia in Opusc. Sci. , 3, p. 411. The German botanist Carl Ernst Otto Kuntze placed this species in the genus of araucarias under the currently valid name Araucaria angustifolia in his work Revisio generum plantarum , 3 (3), p. 375 in 1898 . Araucaria brasiliana A.Rich is a synonym for Araucaria angustifolia Kuntze . Araucaria angustifolia is divided into up to ten varieties by some authors .
Araucaria angustifolia belongs together with the Chilean araucaria ( Araucaria araucana ), which is much better known in Central Europe, to the section Araucaria within the genus Araucaria .
swell
- Lutz Fähser: Araucaria angustifolia . In: Peter Schütt, Horst Weisgerber, Hans J. Schuck, Ulla Lang, Bernd Stimm, Andreas Roloff: Lexicon of Conifers. Distribution - Description - Ecology - Use; the great encyclopedia . Nikol, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-933203-80-5 , p. 85-92 .
- Christopher J. Earle: Araucaria angustifolia. In: The Gymnosperm Database. May 21, 2011, accessed October 21, 2011 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Andrew Duncan, Gwen Rigby: The amateur carpenter - technology of wood processing. German edition in cooperation with the master school Ebern for the carpentry trade, Orbis Verlag, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-572-00763-1 , p. 194.
- ↑ Dispersão das pinhas e sementes. In: Official website of the Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária for the dissemination of the araucaria. Retrieved June 23, 2019 (Brazilian Portuguese).
- ↑ Columbea angustifolia in the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) USDA , ARS , National Genetic Resources Program. National Germplasm Resources Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland.
- ↑ Araucaria angustifolia in the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN), USDA , ARS , National Genetic Resources Program. National Germplasm Resources Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland.
Web links
- Araucaria angustifolia in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2009. Posted by: Aljos Farjon, 2006. Retrieved on 3 June of 2009.