Wood oil tree
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Wood oil tree ( Vernicia fordii ) |
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| Vernicia fordii | ||||||||||||
| ( Hemsl. ) Airy Shaw |
The wood oil tree ( Vernicia fordii ), also called Tung tree, Tung oil tree, Kalonussbaum, is a plant species that belongs to the family of the milkweed family (Euphorbiaceae). It is native to southern China , Myanmar, and northern Vietnam . It is cultivated worldwide in tropical areas mostly below an altitude of 800 meters. In the southern United States, for example, it is considered an invasive plant .
The tung or abrasin tree ( Vernicia montana ) and the Japanese wood oil tree ( Vernicia cordata ) are very similar, from whose seeds tung oil (wood oil) is also obtained. They differ from Vernicia fordii in the flowers, there are no streaky sap marks and the petals are further apart, the glands at the base of the leaf are not hot, but elongated and protruding. The trees are also smaller and the inflorescences are unisexual and appear with the leaves. The fruits differ in the deeper segmentation of the here wrinkled shell (with transverse bulges; V. montana ) and the protruding three to five longitudinal ribs and the color. The hair on the sheets is different and the side leaves are smaller and narrower, and the different style easily.
description
Vegetative characteristics
The wood oil tree grows as a strongly branched, small to medium-sized, deciduous tree that reaches heights of up to about 10 meters but also higher. The bark is almost smooth and light gray. The bark of young twigs is initially rust-colored and fluffy, but soon becomes bald and has clear lenticels. Milky juice oozes out when injured . The wood is relatively soft and light. The lanceolate bud scales are often a bit sticky. The tree contains a whitish milky sap.
The alternate leaves are concentrated at the ends of the branches and are divided into a petiole and a leaf blade. The long petiole has two brownish to reddish, blackish glands at the base of the leaf and is about the same length as the leaf blade with a length of (rarely 5 to) 10 to 20 centimeters. The simple, entire, pointed to finely pointed leaf blade with a length of (rarely 5 to) 10 to 20 centimeters and a width of (rarely 4 to) 10 to 19 centimeters, is broad to narrow ovoid, more or less heart-shaped, rarely three-lobed or with individual tips on the edges. The lanceolate and 4 to 10 millimeter long, bare stipules fall off early and leave clear scars. The leaves are poisonous to farm animals due to a poisonous saponin and a phytotoxin.
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Generative characteristics
Vernicia fordii is single sexed ( monoecious ). The branched, umbrella-like inflorescences are up to 20 cm wide and always appear in front of the leaves. The inflorescences contain very few (one) female and mostly male flowers. The unisexual flowers have a diameter of around 3–4 centimeters. The five to eight (male flower); up to nine (female flower), white, free, slightly overlapping, spatula to traffic lanceolate bloom cladding sheets have reddish stripes in the corolla tube with yellowish areas in between ( sap marks ). The male flowers have 7–14 stamens , with yellowish or reddish stamens and yellow anthers, in two circles, the outer ones are shorter, they are each fused into a tube in the lower part. The ovary is upper and hairy, the yellowish style are bilobed. Staminodes may be present in female flowers, but they usually disappear during the anthesis. The female and male flowers each have several wedge-shaped nectar glands at the base , the small, green to reddish calyx consists of two to three dissimilar lobes.
The hard and smooth, rounded and pointed stone fruit , which is considered poisonous, has a length of 4 to 6 centimeters and a diameter of 3 to 5 centimeters. The fruits contain three to five large seeds which lie in a fibrous, segmented pericarp . They are initially green and turn green-brownish to reddish in color when ripe, the individual shell segments are weakly lined. The egg-shaped and flattened, cuspid toothed seed with a size of 2 to 2.5 × 2 to 2.2 cm and about 15 mm thick is oily, gray-brownish, somewhat warty and slightly furrowed, the hilum of different colors is clearly visible. The seed coat is lignified, the weight of the seeds is about 5 to 6 grams. The seeds are poisonous to humans.
The flowering period extends from March to April. The fruits ripen from August to November.
The chromosome number is 2n = 22.
Cultivation and Use
The wood oil tree is valued for its wood oil , which is obtained from the seeds of the fruit and was also used as fuel for lamps in ancient China . Today the oil is used in paints, varnishes and grouting agents, as well as wood care products, and after the rubber resin has been extracted , it is also suitable as engine oil . The wood is light but hard and can serve as a substitute for the balsa wood .
The wood oil tree was introduced to Thailand , Argentina , Paraguay and the USA , mainly for the extraction of oil. However, due to environmental damage from drought and hurricanes, the tree was unable to develop permanently in the United States.
The worldwide production of tung seeds (nuts) increased between 1970 and 1980 from 100,000 tons to 200,000 tons.
Systematics
This species was as Aleurites fordii 1906 by William Hemsley in Hooker's Icones Plantarum , 29, table 2801, 2802 first described . Herbert Kenneth Airy Shaw presented them in 1966 in Kew Bulletin 20 (3), p. 394 to the genus Vernicia Lour. The genus Vernicia belongs to the subtribe Aleuritinae from the tribe Aleuritideae in the subfamily Crotonoideae within the family of Euphorbiaceae .
swell
- Bingtao Li & Michael G. Gilbert: Vernicia in der Flora of China , Volume 11, 2008, p. 266: Vernicia fordii - online (section description).
- A. Radlcliffe-Smith: Vernicia fordii in the Flora of Pakistan : online (description section).
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b W. Stuppy, PC van Welzen, P. Klinratana & MCT Posa: Euphorbiaceae: Vernicia in the Flora of Thailand : online at Nationaal Herbarium Nederland (in English, last accessed on December 9, 2017).
- ↑ a b Vernicia fordii in the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN), USDA , ARS , National Genetic Resources Program. National Germplasm Resources Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland.
- ^ W. Stuppy, PC van Welzen et al .: Revision of the genera Aleurites, Reutealis and Vernicia (Euphorbiaceae). In: Blumea. 44 (1), 1999, pp. 73-98, online (PDF; 2.8 MB) at repository.naturalis.nl, accessed on December 9, 2017.
- ^ A b Robert A. Lewis: Lewis' Dictionary of Toxicology. Lewis Publ., 1998, ISBN 1-56670-223-2 , p. 48.
- ↑ a b Yingji Mao, Wenbo Liu, Xue Chen et al .: Flower Development and Sex Determination between Male and Female Flowers in Vernicia fordii. In: Front. Plant Sci. 8, 2017, p. 1291, doi : 10.3389 / fpls.2017.01291 .
- ↑ Zhiyong Zhan, Yicun Chen, Jay Shockey et al .: Proteomic Analysis of Tung Tree (Vernicia fordii) Oilseeds during the Developmental Stages. In: Molecules. 21 (11), 2016, p. 1486, doi : 10.3390 / molecules21111486 .
- ↑ Vernicia fordii in the Flora of North America, Vol. 12.
- ↑ Data sheet from The Web site of the Center for New Crops & Plant Products, at Purdue University. (last accessed on November 9, 2010).
Web links
- Vernicia fordii at Useful Tropical Plants, accessed December 8, 2017.