Indian bay leaf
| Indian bay leaf | ||||||||||||
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Leaves dried |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Cinnamomum tamala | ||||||||||||
| ( Buch.-Ham. ) T. Nees |
The Indian bay leaf ( Cinnamomum tamala ), also called mother cinnamon , is a species of the laurel family (Lauraceae). The leaves are used as a spice.
description
Appearance, bark and foliage leaf
The Indian bay leaf grows as a medium-sized, evergreen tree that reaches heights of 10 to 20 m and trunk diameters of up to 1.5 m. The gray-brown bark is fragrant and contains slime. The initially more or less angular branches have a sparsely gray, downy, hairy bark that soon becomes bald. Later, the branches are round and have a tea-brown, bare bark. The small terminal buds have two scales and a silky hair.
The alternate and spirally or almost constantly against arranged on the branches leaves is divided into petiole and leaf blade. The slender petiole is 0.5 to 1.5 cm long. The rough, thin, leathery, bald leaf blade is ovoid, elongated to lanceolate with a pointed blade base with a length of 7.5 to 15, sometimes up to 25 cm and a width of usually 3 to 5.5 (2.5 to 8) cm and a long drawn tip. There are characteristic three leaf veins parallel from the base, clearly on the upper side of the leaf and only indistinctly raised on the underside of the leaf, with a tiny network nerve in between. The upper side of the leaf is smooth, shiny green and the underside of the leaf is matt and green-white.
Inflorescence and flower
The flowering period extends from April to May. The lateral or almost terminal, slender, branched, paniculate inflorescence has a length of 5 to 10 cm and contains many flowers. The 1 to 4 cm long inflorescence stem and the rhachis are hairy, finely gray and downy. The thin flower stalk is 4 to 8 mm long and hairy with fine gray hairs.
The hermaphrodite, radial symmetry flowers have a diameter of up to 6 mm. The six durable, white-green bloom cladding sheets are elongated with a length of 3 to 4 mm and are fused with short tubes at their base and are sparsely haired on the outside and densely downy on the inside. The inverted conical flower tube is less than 2 mm long. The free areas of the bracts are obovate-oblong with a length of about 4 mm and a width of about 1.5 mm with a blunt end. There are three fertile stamens in three circles; they are only slightly shorter than the bracts. The gray, shaggy stamen have small glands about one third of their height. The anthers are oval. There is a circle with three spike-shaped, shaggy hairy staminodes that are 1.7 mm long. The mm with a length of about 1.2 ovoid ovary is hairy shaggy. The plump pistil is the same or up to three times as long as the ovary and ends in a small, inconspicuous, shield-shaped scar.
fruit
The stone fruit is mm and a length of 10 to 14 to a diameter of up to 11 mm slim-obovate or ellipsoidal with a pointed end. The fruits ripen between June and July. The fleshy fruit cup is up to 5 mm high and 7 mm in diameter at the edge. Its basal area merges into the 8 mm long, inverted conical fruit stalk.
Chromosome number
The number of chromosomes is 2n = 24.
Occurrence
Cinnamomum tamala thrives in tropical and subtropical areas of the Himalayas from the Indus to Bhutan at altitudes between 300 and 2400 m. The home areas are in Nepal , Bhutan Sikkim , western Yunnan, as well as the Khasi and Jaintia mountains and in eastern Bengal in India .
Common names in some languages
Hindi : तेज पत्ता, तेजपत, tejapattā , Tej-patta, Tejpat; Bengali : tamala, tejpat; Gujarati : tamalapatra, tejpat; Tamil : தாளிசபத்திரி, இலவங்கபத்திரி, பட்டை, Talishapattiri, Ilavangapattiri, Pattai; Maithili : पत्रक, Patrak; Marathi : तमाल पत्र, Tamal patra; Urdu : تیز پات, Tez pat; Ancient Greek : Μαλαβάθρον, Malabathron; Latin : Malabathrum, Malabatrum; English : Indian cassia lignea; French : Laurier des Indes.
Systematics
The first description of this species was in 1822 under the name Laurus tamala by Francis Buchanan-Hamilton in Transactions of the Linnean Society of London. 13 (2), pp. 555-558. The specific epithet tamala is derived from the Bengali common name . The valid species name was in Theodor Friedrich Ludwig Nees von Esenbeck & Johann Erdwin Christopher Ebermaier in 1831 : Handb. Med.-Pharm. Bot. 2, p. 426 published. Synonyms for Cinnamomum tamala (Buch.-Ham.) T.Nees & Eberm. are: Laurus cassia Nees & T. Nees , Laurus sailyana Ham. , Laurus soncaurium Ham.
use
The leaves are used for seasoning. Indian bay leaves are used as a spice in northern Indian cuisine . There their cinnamon-like scent spices braised meat and rice. The bark is used as a spice like real cinnamon ( Cinnamomum verum ) and is usually added to the bark of this species for elongation, adulteration.
From antiquity to the Middle Ages , however, they were also known in Europe under the Latin name “Malabathrum”; recipes often just say folia ("leaves"). Leaves of Indian laurel were and are used in traditional grut beers . In modern editions of recipes from these epochs, they are mostly replaced without comment by the leaves of southern European real bay leaves , which, however, taste different.
In the event that malabatrum (the paradise leaf ) is not available, the leaves of the clove tree and Indian spikenard were given as substitutes in the pharmaceutical literature of the Middle Ages (so in Circa instans ) .
The Indian bay leaf is sometimes confused with the “salam leaf”, but it is the Indonesian bay leaf ( Eugenia polyantha ), which tastes different and much weaker.
literature
- AJGH Kostermans: Lauraceae in the Flora of Pakistan. Cinnamomum tamala - online.
- Xi-wen Li, Jie Li & Henk van der Werff: Cinnamomum in the Flora of China. Volume 7, 2008, p. 182: Cinnamomum tamala - online.
- Datasheet at AgroForestryTree Database .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Cinnamomum tamala at Tropicos.org. Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis
- ↑ Indian bay leaf on Gernot Katzer's spice pages.
- ↑ Cinnamomum tamala at Useful Tropical Plants, accessed July 24, 2017.
- ↑ Gagel (Myrica gale L.) on Gernot Katzer's spice pages.
- ↑ Konrad Goehl : Observations and additions to the 'Circa instans'. In: Medical historical messages. Journal for the history of science and specialist prose research. Volume 34, 2015 (2016), pp. 69-77, here: p. 71.