Salbaum
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Salbaum ( Shorea robusta ), illustration |
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The Salbaum ( Shorea robusta ) is a plant species in the wing fruit family (Dipterocarpaceae). Local common names in India include Ral, Salwa, Sakhu, Sakher, Shal, Sal, Kandar and Sakwa.
description
Vegetative characteristics
The sal tree grows as an upright tree and reaches heights of up to 35 m. It is considered to be slow to medium-fast growing (is around 100 years old) and has a hard wood . The trunk reaches a diameter of up to 2 m. The freshly felled heartwood is light, but later darkens. It's resin- rich and long-lasting. The sapwood is whitish and rots very quickly. The bark of the young trees is 2 to 5 cm thick, soft and interspersed with a few deep furrows. The bark of older trees is reddish-brown or gray. Young twigs are hairy short.
In humid areas the sal tree is evergreen, in drier areas it loses a large part of its leaves between February and April. In April / May, new egg-shaped to elongated, elliptical and slightly leathery leaves that are 5 to 24 cm wide and 10 to 40 cm long and have 2 to 2.5 cm long, hairy stems appear. The two-row leaves are leathery and shine on the upper side when they are older, while the underside of the leaves is pale green. There the lighter midrib and about 12 lateral nerves emerge. The tip of the spade is tapered to rounded, the base of the spade is heart-shaped to rounded.
The stipules are elongated and fall off very early.
Generative characteristics
The flowering period is from February to May. The flowers are in racemous , short-haired panicles up to 25 cm long . The fine-nerved petals are cream-colored to yellowish and can sometimes have a pink median stripe. They are about 0.5 × 1 to 1.5 cm long and twisted (contort). The sepals are ovate when young and short, densely hairy. When the fruit ripens, the sepals grow into fine-veined, greenish-reddish wings, three are up to 1.5 × 8 cm long and longer, two are up to 0.5 × 4 cm long and shorter. The flower has many stamens that surround the ovary in several circles like a pillow, the connective of the short-haired anthers form small appendages. The Upper ovary has only a conical stylus .
The fruit ( wing fruit ) is a nut up to 1.2 cm long and has a stylus remnant up to 1.2 cm long at the tip. It is surrounded by the five sepals of unequal length which serve to spread the wind ( anemochory ). The 0.5 to 1.2 cm large fruits are ripe at the end of May to July. The seeds often germinate on the mother plant ( viviparia ) and grow very quickly on the soil watered by the spring monsoons .
The number of chromosomes is 2n = 14.
distribution
It is an important tree species in the north of the Indian subcontinent. There it is forest-forming ( Salwald ) and thus a form of monsoon forests .
The sal tree grows south of the Himalayas , from Myanmar in the east via Arunachal Pradesh , Assam , Bangladesh , Sikkim to Nepal . In central India it can be found in the northern states up to the Shivalik Hills east of the Yamuna River in the state of Haryana . The distribution continues southward into the eastern Vindhya Mountains , the Satpura Mountains and the Eastern Ghats .
Ecology and hazard
Sage trees grow mainly on sandy loam soils (50% sand , 30% silt , 20% clay ). They prefer drier locations, longer floods damage them. Nevertheless, a distinction is made between the damp coastal Sal forests and the drier Sal inland forests.
The sal tree needs a lot of light and cannot tolerate shading. It forms a loose canopy so that the undergrowth is well exposed.
Fires often occur in sal forests (probably due to humans), against which mature trees are resistant. Depending on the severity of the fire, younger trees can be damaged, especially by wound infections from fungi . In this respect, it is questionable whether fire is more beneficial or harmful, as fire is important for the release of nutrients in other ecosystems, such as the South African fynbos . However, the increased growth of the herbaceous layer after fires seems to promote the browsing of young plants through higher herbivore densities.
In addition to fires, a beetle , the sal heartwood borer ( Hoplocerambyx spinicornis ), is a significant threat to the sal tree . Since the species determines the vegetation (but not as a monoculture ), the potential risk from pests is very high.
Since the sal tree has many uses for humans (see section below), there is also a risk of overexploitation, so that forest management is necessary. Between 1990 and 2010, the wood supply of the sal tree in India increased 1.7 times.
use
The wood of the Salbaum is difficult to work with due to the resin and the fibrous structure and is mainly used for building houses, for bridges, pallets, wagons, telephone and power poles and as a track pad. Hence it has significant economic value. The whitish, opalescent resin is used to seal planks and burned as incense during Hindu ceremonies .
The leaves serve as plates or baskets for food. The folded leaves with a little turmeric or a few grains of rice are also an invitation to a wedding. The oil obtained from the leaves from the distillation is used for perfume production or to perfume chewing or smoking tobacco.
The oil-rich seeds are also used in a variety of ways. The oil, or ointment butter , mainly contains stearic acid and oleic acid and is used, among other things, for soap and cosmetics production and serves as lamp oil. It is also allowed as an additive in chocolate production as cocoa butter equivalent . Ointment butter is sold hardened as a vegetable vanapastighee or used illegally to stretch real ghee (clarified butter). The economic value of the salbaum seeds in India was 114 million rupees in 2010 (FAO, [1]). The ointment butter is also used in the food industry as an alternative to palm oil .
The oil cake of the pressed seeds is rich in tannins (6–8%) and is mixed with cattle with up to 20% for cattle feed, with pigs and poultry 10% is possible without any problems.
In the Himalayan region, the resin of the sal tree has been used by the healers and shamans of the local peoples for a long time as a ritual incense. This is why the resin is also known as "Tibetan incense".
Salbaum in Indian mythology
The widespread use of the sal tree and its importance have also found expression in Indian culture. Legend has it that Queen Maya gave birth to her son Siddhartha Gautama , who later became a Buddha through his enlightenment , under a sal tree. Another legend has it that she dreamed of an elephant with six tusks entering her body under a sal tree . This elephant, called Airavata , is regarded by many Hindus as the reincarnation of the god Vishnu . It is also said that Buddha died under a sal tree. Many medieval sculptures depict tree nymphs ( salabhanjikas ) holding onto a branch of a sal tree or breaking it off.
literature
- DN Tewari: A Monograph on Sal (Shorea robusta Gaertn.f). International Book Distributors, 1995, ISBN 81-7089-217-1 .
- Shorea robusta in the Flora of China, Vol. 13.
Web links
- KH Gautam, NN Devoe: Ecological and anthropogenic niches of sal (Shorea robusta Gaertn. F.) Forest and prospects for multiple-product forest management - a review. Forestry Advance Access 2005 .
- Shorea robusta in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2006. Posted by: Ashton, 1998. Retrieved on 12 May 2006 ..
- Shorea robusta at Useful Tropical Plants, accessed May 4, 2018.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Shorea robusta at Tropicos.org. In: IPCN Chromosome Reports . Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis.
- ↑ FAO: India- Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015 - Country Report last accessed on January 1, 2017, online .
- ↑ Sanjoy Patnaik: Sal seed. Center for People's Forestry, 2008, ISBN 978-81-906691-7-7 (set), online (PDF; 167 kB).
- ↑ ZEIT No. 37/2017: The future on bread. Retrieved February 5, 2018 .
- ^ Sal resin (Shorea robusta). Retrieved December 9, 2015 .