Peach palm
| Peach palm | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
_5.jpg)
Peach palm ( Bactris gasipaes ) |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Bactris gasipaes | ||||||||||||
| Kunth |
The peach palm or aiphanes ( Bactris gasipaes , port .: Pupunheira ; span .: Chonta , Chontaduro , Pijuayo ; Engl .: Peach Palm ) is a tropical America domestic and widespread palm . The trunk, which is around 20 meters high, and the leaves are partly densely covered with spines.
It was cultivated by the South American Indians of the tropical zone.
The peach palm is monoecious , there are male and female flowers on one specimen. Occasionally there are also hermaphroditic and a few sterile flowers. The flowers are yellowish.
The fruit is an egg-shaped stone fruit up to 8 centimeters in size with an edible, orange-whitish pulp that surrounds the individual, dark stone core, which is up to 4 centimeters in size. The fruits can be red, orange or yellow, depending on the degree of ripeness and palm variety.
Several ethnic groups use the fruit to make beer through fermentation with the help of saliva, the so-called chicha . The very hard wood is still used, for example, by the Huaorani of eastern Ecuador to make blowguns and lances .
Due to their high growth, smaller plants can be grown in the shade of their crowns that would otherwise burn in the blazing sun. The first fruits can be harvested just 18 to 24 months after the sapling has been planted. These are also used by birds, especially parrots , as food. The palm is grown in Brazil , Trinidad and Tobago , Costa Rica , Nicaragua , Ecuador , Peru , Venezuela , Bolivia , Panama and Colombia .
Systematics
One can distinguish between two varieties:
- Bactris gasipaes var. Chichagui (H.Karst.) AJHend. : It occurs in Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil.
- Bactris gasipaes var. Gasipaes : It occurs from Honduras to Brazil.
use
The fruits have to be cooked for a long time. They are slightly angular and very starchy. The trunk of this palm is suitable for the production of palm hearts , as it develops several shoots and regenerates quickly. The saplings of the peach palm grow directly on the trunk. So offshoots are constantly being formed. The reddish palm fruit can be processed into palm oil or other foods and is rich in proteins . Their edible oil yield even exceeds the soybean or the African palm. It can also be used to make fruit juices and alcoholic beverages . In earlier times, the indigenous Amazonian peoples used the fruit as a drink. With the Shuar on the eastern slopes of the Andes, the drink Chicha de Chonta is made by fermenting the fruit with saliva . The spines of the palm tree are used by members of the Matis for tattooing as well as for stinging body jewelry and, under the designation detashkete, are inserted into the nostrils to imitate the appearance of whiskers .
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Rafaël Govaerts (Ed.): Bactris - World Checklist of Selected Plant Families of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Last accessed on August 6, 2018.
- ↑ The musha ceremony at PIB Socioambiental - Instituto Socioambiental.
- ↑ The Matis on brasilienportal.ch.
Web links
- Description, photos on dieter-kloessing.de, accessed on April 26, 2017.
- Bactris gasipaes Kunth ( Memento from April 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ).
- Jorge Mora-Urpí, John C. Weber and Charles R. Clement: Peach palm Bactris gasipaeas Kunth ( Memento from January 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1 MB).
- Bactris gasipaes at Useful Tropical Plants, accessed November 21, 2018.