Humiria balsamifera
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Inflorescence. Ajuruteua Peninsula, Bragança , Pará, Brazil |
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| Humiria balsamifera | ||||||||||||
| Aubl. |
Humiria balsamifera is a species of plant inthe Humiriaceae family . It isnative tonorthern South America . The wood is hard and very durable, which is why it is traded and processed internationally, often under the trade name "Tauroniro". It is also used as a medicinal plant .
description
Appearance and leaf
Humiria balsamifera grows as an evergreen shrub , in some varieties a low shrub or mostly as a small to large tree and can reach heights of 27 to 37 meters. The mostly cylindrical trunk has lengths of 18 to 21 meters. The diameter of the trunk is often 0.50 to 0.70 meters, in some cases even up to 1.20 meters. The wood is hard. Depending on the variety, the branches are almost round to flattened; they can be winged by the falling leaf base. The bark of the branches is hairy or glabrous. The kind carries a reddish balm or oleoresin . The grayish bark is thick and cracked.
The alternate arranged on the branches leaves are stalked to sitting or pseudo-stalked. The bald, simple, more or less leathery, thin or thick, flexible or often stiff leaf blade is variable in shape. Common leaf shapes are elliptical, obovate or oblong. The base of the blade is usually a bit sloping, in some varieties it is more or less pointed, wedge-shaped to blunt, sometimes suddenly narrowed into a winged petiole, more rarely rounded to blunt. The upper end of the leaf blade is, for example, rounded to blunt or truncated and often indented, sometimes spiky to pointed or pointed. The width, which is also very variable in terms of size, can reach a length of 18 cm and a width of 7 cm. The upper side of the leaf is glabrous or rarely hairy. The midrib is conspicuous on the upper side of the leaf and raised on the lower side. The underside of the leaf is dotted with glands near the leaf margin. The thin lateral nerves are spread out at a distance of 3 to 5 mm, somewhat raised and conspicuous and curved; they unite near the edge of the spread. The leaf margin is completely to slightly notched. The stipules are small and fall off early or are absent.
Inflorescence and flower
The 1.5 to 6 cm long inflorescence stems, which are typically winged or simply angular, are almost terminal or lateral. The squat and stiff inflorescence rhachis can also be more or less winged and more or less densely haired with short bristles or glabrous. Many flowers are in fastendständigen, axillary and dichotomous or alternately branched schirmrispigen inflorescences, often in composite rispigen total inflorescences together. The resistant support leaves (bracts) are at a length of 0.5 to 3 mm triangular or ovoid. The articulated flower stalks are in the lower, 1 to 2 mm long, stiff, as well as downy hairy and in the upper, 0.5 to 2 mm long, part thick, as well as bald or rarely with short-bristled hair.
The hermaphrodite flowers are five-fold with a double flower envelope . The five short, 1 to 2 mm long and thick, almost circular or egg-shaped, overlapping ( imbricate ) sepals like roof tiles are fused cup-shaped; they are rarely hairy with short bristles on the outside and the edge is ciliate, otherwise they are bald. The five free, relatively thick, bald or rarely hairy, white or greenish-white petals are ovoid with a length of 4.5 to 7 mm and a width of 1 to 1.6 mm with a rounded upper end. The 20 stamens are in a circle. The upright, stiff, 4 to 5 mm long stamens are fused to form a tube on about the lower half, ten longer ones alternate with ten shorter ones and the free areas are densely papillary . The mm with a length from 0.8 to 1 egg-shaped dust bag are dorsifix above its base and the tongue-shaped or eilanzettliche Konnektiv is much longer than the two nearly spherical, soft hairy counters, which attach to the inside of the base almost laterally; they open when pulled away. Of the ovary surrounding discus is from 20 elongated, thick, adherent, at its base, formed bare shed. Five carpels are fused to form an upper, five-chambered, egg-shaped ovary, which is somewhat softly hairy at its upper end, but otherwise bald. Each ovary chamber contains two anatropic, pendent ovules and has two integuments . The upright, columnar, chubby stylus is more or less hairy rough, but bald at the top and at least as long as the stamens. The thick scars are lobed in a star shape and head-like.
Fruit and seeds
With a length of 10 to 14 mm and a diameter of 5 to 8 mm, the relatively small, bald stone fruit is ovoid to ellipsoid. The epicarp is thin. The fleshy mesocarp is more or less sweet, aromatic and edible. The woody, hard endocarp (stone core) is ellipsoidally elongated and blunt or rounded at its base and has ten fine stripes; these equally distant stripes mark five longitudinal, narrow flaps that alternate with five depressions at the upper end (germ openings). Each ovary chamber develops into two superimposed chambers, each containing only one seed, sometimes a seed is developed and fertile in only one of these chambers . A fruit often only contains one to four developed seeds.
With a length of 3 to 5 mm, the seeds are almost pear-shaped-ellipsoidal or oblong with a pointed upper end. The outer episperm is scaly and the inner tegmen membranous. There is a fleshy endosperm .
ingredients
Calcium oxalate occurs as a druse in the leaves and as a druse and single crystal in the shoot axes . The drug extracted from the bark contains bergenin . The pulp and seeds contain fatty oil .
Occurrence
The relatively large natural range of Humiria balsamifera is in South America in Guyana , French Guiana , Suriname , Venezuela , Colombia , Peru or Brazil ( Amazon region ). Humiria balsamifera thrives in dense forests on sandy or clay soils .
use
From Humiria balsamifera , but also from other Humiria species, a balm is obtained from which umiri is made. It is used, for example, to produce fragrances. The chemical derivatives of the contained sesquiterpene smell of wood and are used, for example, in perfumes and deodorants.
The fruits are edible.
Medical use
The balm and a tincture made from the bark are used in folk medicine. It is dried and powdered by the indigenous tribes on the Rio Piraparaná and used for fresh wounds to accelerate the healing process. The Umiri balsam is the falsification of Peruvian balsam used. The bark is used to treat amoebic dysentery .
Repellent
American and Chinese researchers have discovered the balsam of Humiria balsamifera as a new repellent , i.e. as a means of protection against mosquitoes and other bloodsuckers. Mosquitoes and ticks should be deterred as effectively as conventional repellants. The active ingredient isolongifolenone is odorless to humans . Every year there are several hundred million cases of infectious disease worldwide that are transmitted by blood-sucking arthropods . Good results with isolongifolenone have been achieved, for example, in yellow fever mosquitoes ( Aedes aegyptii ) and deer ticks ( Ixodes scapularis ). Isolongifolenone can be synthesized inexpensively. The synthesis method and the use as a repellent have been registered as patents.
Use of wood
The wood is used in a wide variety of ways in the countries of origin. Trade names for the wood are for example Tauroniro, Umiri / Houmiri, Chanul, Bastard Bulletwood, Oloroso, Tabaniro, Turanira and Tawanengro.
The rather heavy, reddish wood is mainly used in the industrialized countries for garden, terrace and balcony design. Thanks to its hardness and longevity, this wood is very suitable as terrace wood or for terrace planks. It is also used as construction timber in contact with the ground. The surface can be oiled very well and the wood is mechanically easy to moderately difficult to work with.
Wood properties
The heartwood is pink-brown to red-brown. It has a very fine structure and is difficult to distinguish from pinkish-gray sapwood . The wood is classified in durability class 1 to 2 (durability against wood-destroying fungi according to EN 350-2), which corresponds to a durability of 20 to 25 years.
In contrast to other hardwoods , it is almost free of insect holes (wormholes, pineholes). Although these do not have any influence on the shelf life if they occur in small numbers, they are classified as an optical defect. Like any other type of wood, it turns gray due to the weather ( patina ). It does not show any noticeable washings or discolouration in contrast to other similar types of wood, in which there is "bleeding" of ingredients.
Systematics
With the first description of the species Humiria balsamifera , Jean Baptiste Christophe Fusée Aublet set up the genus Humiria in 1775 in Histoire des Plantes de la Guiane Françoise , 1, pp. 564-566, plate 225 , there in the spelling "Houmiri". A homonym is Humiria balsamifera J.St.-Hil., Published in Jean Henri Jaume Saint-Hilaire : Exposition des Familles Naturelles , 2, 1805, p. 374.
Synonyms for Humiria balsamifera Aubl. are: Houmiri balsamifera Aubl. , Humiria arenaria Baill. , Humirium amplexicaule Mart. ex Urb. , Humirium balsamiferum Benth. , Humirium multiflorum Mart. , Myrodendrum amplexicaule Spreng. , Myrodendrum amplexicaule Willd. , Myrodendrum balsamiferum Raeusch.
The genus name Humiria is derived from the Caribbean name "umiri", it was used in French Guiana for Humiria balsamifera ; the species is also referred to by this name in the Brazilian Amazon. The spelling Humiria in place of "Houmiri" was determined by the Code of International Nomenclature . The specific epithet balsamifera is derived from the Greek word balsamum (βαλσαμον) for "balsam of the balsam tree " and -fer (from ferre , to carry) for "containing"; this refers to the red balm, which dries up reddish.
From Humiria balsamifera Aubl. there are about 7 to 14 varieties :
- Humiria balsamifera Aubl. balsamifera
- Humiria balsamifera var. Floribunda (Mart.) Cuatrec.
- Humiria balsamifera var. Guianensis (Benth.) Cuatrec.
- Humiria balsamifera var. Laurina (Urb.) Cuatrec.
- Humiria balsamifera var. Parvifolia (A.Juss.) Cuatrec.
- Humiria balsamifera var. Pilosa (Steyerm.) Cuatrec.
- Humiria balsamifera var. Savannarum (Gleason) Cuatrec.
- Humiria balsamifera var. Subsessilis (Urb.) Cuatrec.
swell
- José Cuatrecasas: A taxonomic revision of the Humiriaceae. In: Contributions from the United States National Herbarium 35 (2), 1961, pp. 25-214. Scanned in at biodiversitylibrary.org : Humiria balsamifera with its varieties, pp. 87–118 (section description and systematics).
- Franklin R. Longwood: Commercial Timbers of the Caribbean , United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Handbook 207, 1962, online (PDF; 9 MB).
- Martin Chudnoff: Tropical Timbers of the World , United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, April 1980, online (PDF; 29 MB).
- Guyana Forestry Commission , Guyana Woods, 21 Species, Revised September 2004, online at Yumpu.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g J. Cuatrecasas: A taxonomic revision of the Humiriaceae. In: Contributions from the United States National Herbarium 35 (2), 1961, pp. 25-214, scanned at biodiversitylibrary.org : Humiria balsamifera with its varieties, pp.87-118 .
- ↑ a b First publication scanned at biodiversitylibrary.org .
- ↑ Humiria balsamifera in the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN), USDA , ARS , National Genetic Resources Program. National Germplasm Resources Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland.
- ↑ FD Boese angle: (. Aubl) The ovule and seed of Humiria balsamifera St. Hil. In: Acta Botanica Neerlandica. 34 (2), 1985, pp. 183-191, doi: 10.1111 / j.1438-8677.1985.tb01878.x , online (PDF).
- ↑ a b R. Hegnauer : Chemotaxonomy of plants. Volume 4: Dicotyledoneae: Daphniphyllaceae to Lythraceae , Volume 4 - Volume 19 of textbooks and monographs from the field of exact sciences / Chemical Series Series , Verlag Birkhäuser, 1966, ISBN 978-3-0348-9384-8 (reprint), p. 269, limited preview in Google Book search.
- ^ A b Richard Evans Schultes : De plantis toxicariis e mundo novo tropicale commentationes. XXI. Interesting native uses of the humiriaceae in the northwest Amazon. In: Journal of Ethnopharmacology 1, 1979, pp. 89-94, doi: 10.1016 / 0378-8741 (79) 90019-9 .
- ↑ a b Resin against bloodsuckers at scienceticker.info, with information from the Journal of Medical Entomology .
- ↑ a b data sheet on thewoodexplorer.com.
- ↑ a b Tauroniro - data sheet (PDF) at hartholz.de.
- ↑ Humiria balsamifera at Tropicos.org. Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis
further reading
- TBC da Silva, VL Alves, LVH Mendonca, LM Conserva, EMM da Rocha, EHA Andrade & RPL Lemos: Chemical constituents and preliminary antimalarial activity of Humiria balsamifera , In: Pharmaceutical Biology . Volume 42, No. 2, 2004, pp. 94-97, doi : 10.1080 / 13880200490510702 .
- Flora Brasiliensis, enumeratio plantarum in Brasilia hactenus detectarum: quas suis aliorumque botanicorum studiis descriptas et methodo naturali digestas partim icone illustratas / ediderunt Carolus Fridericus Philippus de Martius et Augustus Guilielmus Eichler; iisque defunctis successor Ignatius Urban. Volume 12, Pars 2, 1872-1877. Humiria balsamifera pp. 440–441: Scanned at biodiversitylibrary.org .
- Eduard Winkler : Complete real lexicon of medicinisch-pharmaceutischen natural history and raw goods. First volume: A – L , Brockhaus, 1840, limited preview in the Google book search on p. 775.
Web links
- Humiria balsamifera at Useful Tropical Plants.
- Data sheet at USDA Forest Service .
- Illustration of details at Tropicos.
- Illustrations on plantillustrations.org.
- Photos at KEW.