Sugar palm

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Sugar palm
Sugar palm (Arenga pinnata) from Francisco Manuel Blanco: Flora de Filipinas.

Sugar palm ( Arenga pinnata )
from Francisco Manuel Blanco : Flora de Filipinas .

Systematics
Order : Palm- like arecales
Family : Palm family (Arecaceae)
Subfamily : Coryphoideae
Tribe : Caryoteae
Genre : Arenga
Type : Sugar palm
Scientific name
Arenga pinnata
( Wurmb ) Merr.

The sugar palm ( Arenga pinnata , Syn . : Arenga saccharifera Labill. Ex DC. ) Is widespread in the humid tropical areas of Malaysia and Indonesia and is now cultivated in the entire Indomalayan archipelago .

description

The trunk reaches heights of 10 to 15 m. It carries a head of mighty pinnate leaves about 3 m long . The plants are single sexed ( monoecious ). The female inflorescences grow in the area of ​​the leaf fronds, the male below them. The flowers are threefold. The male flowers contain many stamens . The fruits contain one to three seeds.

The number of chromosomes is 2n = 32.

use

The juice from the inflorescences is harvested from the 9th year. 2 to 7 liters can be withdrawn in the first few days. After about 7 weeks, the flow of juice decreases. Up to 1800 liters of juice can be obtained per year and processed into approx. 150 kg of sugar. The seeds are then eaten and the leaf stalk fibers ( arenga fibers ) are processed into brushes, ropes and mats. Tubes are made from the wood of the logs.

The leaves and leaf blades are used as building material and wickerwork. The black bark is used to cover high-quality roofs, so that z. B. Temple in Bali look like covered with black thatch .

The stone fruits contain oxalates in the pulp . Whole unripe fruits are first briefly boiled or roasted so that the allergy potential is reduced during further processing . Then the peel ( exocarp ) is removed, the transparent, still seedless pulp is boiled and watered for several days to remove the oxalates. These fruits, pickled in syrup, are a popular snack in Indonesia and the Philippines or are processed into desserts. Preserved young fruits in syrup are sold in specialty stores under the name of palm fruit . Older fruits that contain a stone seed are no longer used.

Sago is also extracted from the plant to a small extent .

  • Ripe fruits on the ground

  • Ripe fruit with a stone

  • Young fruits

  • Palm fruits in syrup

  • The roofs of the Pura Ulun Danu Bratan covered with bark

literature

  • H. Brücher: Tropical useful plants. Origin, Evolution and Domestication . Springer, Berlin 1977.
  • M. Flach, F. Rumawas: Plant yealding non-seed carbohydrates . In: Prosea . tape 9 . Backhuys Publ., Leiden 1996.
  • W. Franke: Crop science . Thieme, Stuttgart and New York 1997.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arenga pinnata at Tropicos.org. In: IPCN Chromosome Reports . Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis

Web links