Araucaria angustifolia

Brazilian Araucaria (Araucaria angustifolia)

The Brazilian Araucaria or Parana pine (Araucaria angustifolia ) is a plant of the genus Araucaria (Araucaria ) in the family (Araucariaceae ). She's from the 19 Araucaria species, the greatest economic importance. In Brazil it is port. pinheiro -do parana called.

The Brazilian Araucaria is a high altitudes in the south of the Atlantic rainforests of Brazil, as well as the neighboring countries ( dominant ) forest -forming tree. Like the other coastal forests were and are the Araucarienwälder Brazil, according to the economic importance of wood, a strong exploitation and colonization subject and are only preserved in remains in a natural form.

• 7.1 Notes and references

Description

Habit

The Brazilian Monkey Puzzle Tree is an evergreen tree, the plant height of 30 to 40, can rarely reach up to 50 meters and trunk diameter of more than 1 meter. The Brazilian Araucaria also propagates with stick deflections. On the straight, cylindrical trunk are horizontally extending branches. The branches are in whorls of 4 to 8 trees in dense stands up to a height of 25 unbeastet. The stem volume is 10 to 20, in exceptional cases up to 50 m³, with about one- quarter are in the bark. The shape of the tree crown changed significantly with the age of the tree. Young trees have a conical, densely benadelte crown. Old trees have a flattened, umbrella-shaped crown, which has only heaped more tufted needles at the ends of the uppermost branches. The right angle of trunk outgoing branches are lively in groups 4-8 branches. The tree can reach an age of up to 600 years.

Bark

The up to 15 centimeters thick, gray -brown bark of the trunk is fine scales, banded horizontally and resinous. About a quarter of the stem volume attributable to the bark.

Wood

The sapwood of Brazilian Monkey Puzzle Tree has a bright yellow color on while the heartwood is light brown to reddish brown in color. It has no resin ducts. It has a density from 0.54 to 0.63 g / cm ³. The grain is mostly straight and the wood structure homogeneous with almost no visible annual rings.

The wood must be dried carefully to avoid drying damage. However, it is easy to work with, can stain and polish well and takes paint well at. It is used among other things for interior stairs, for cabinet making, for drawer side panels, trims and shop equipment.

Foliage

The light-to dark green leaves are about 3-6 inches long and at the base of 4 to 10 millimeters wide. They have a triangular shape to lanzettartige with visible midrib and stabbing tip. On both leaf pages in irregular rows of stomata. The leaves are about 10 to 15 years on the tree.

Flowers, cones and seeds

The Brazilian Araucaria is usually dioecious getrenntgeschlechtig ( dioecious ), rarely monoecious dioecious ( monoecious ). It is reached puberty at about 15 years and is wind-pollinated ( anemophily ). The drum-shaped, brown male cones are 8-15 cm long and 1-4 cm wide with overlapping scales. You are terminally on leafy side branches. The wingless pollen mature in September / October. The spherical female cones are 18 to 25 inches tall and about 13 centimeters wide. They sit on short terminal branches. The spherical cones are initially green, then brown, and colored ( when fresh ) about 1 kg in weight; they need 2 to 3 years to mature. The cones are conspicuously large, they have a diameter of 10 to 30 centimeters. A journal contains 20 to 150 lanceolate - bellied seed. The winged, light brown seeds are 2-8 inches long and about 2 inches wide. The thousand grain weight varies from 4.7 to 9.1 kilograms. The seeds are similar to pine nuts edible. For the natural spread of the seeds of the Azure Raven ( Cyanocorax caeruleus ) provides. Germination is hypogeous; the seedlings have two seed leaves ( cotyledons ).

Dissemination and locations

The Brazilian Araucaria is in the Mountain region ( Serra do Mar) in southeastern Brazil, in the northeastern Argentina and native to eastern Paraguay.

In Brazil, the location of their occurrence at altitudes 500-1800 m in subtropical forests, mainly in the states: Paraná, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul ( where in these States 1800 meters about the peak height corresponds to ), and isolated in São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro. In northern Argentina and Paraguay they settled altitude 500-2300 meters.

In subtropical areas it is practically like planted as an ornamental tree in parks and gardens around the world. The Brazilian Araucaria only tolerate light frosts; it is hardy to about -5 to 8 ° C.

The Brazilian Araucaria comes in a humid - temperate, subtropical climate with no dry season before. The extreme temperatures vary between 35 ° C and -12 ° C. The precipitation is 1200-2400 mm per year. The growth is heavily dependent on the availability of nitrogen and phosphorus in the soil. It does not occur on waterlogged and shallow soils. The pH should be above 3. In its natural range the Brazilian Araucaria forms a closed upper class, living below the more than 200 tree and shrub species.

Use and exploitation

Native Indians gathered the cones and harvested the seeds as food. To get the pins of tall trees, these were shot with blunt arrows. The seeds were roasted for eating; even today they serve as food.

From the coming to Brazil Europeans the value of the timber of the Brazilian Araucaria was quickly detected. Forest areas were released from 1511 and in the 18th century. Then, the Araucaria forests were cleared quickly; the wood was mainly used in shipbuilding and as a timber. An even more radical jungle loss began with the introduction of the railway and later the big truck. This led to a rapid destruction of the forests from the 1870s up to the 1940s. Then mainly forest plantations have been planted for timber production, and not only in Brazil but in subtropical areas. Today, the wood is used mainly as a furniture wood and the construction of musical instruments. But there is more wood it is best suitable in all areas. The trees, which are used economically, today comes largely from plantations.

Pests and diseases

In the natural range of the Brazilian Araucaria is hardly threatened by diseases and pests. Large-scale monocultures grown, however, led to a proliferation of pests. In infestations with leaf -cutting ants of the genera Atta and Acromyrex as well as with locusts, it can sometimes lead to a total failure of crops. Old stocks are sometimes stripped bare by caterpillars of the tensioner Fulgurodes sartinaria and the moth Dirphia araucariae. The seeds are often undermined by the caterpillars of the small butterfly Laspeyresia araucariae. Old trees sometimes suffer to stem rot and white rot, caused by Formes lignosus and Schmetterlingstramete ( Trametes versicolor).

Forest fires represent only a danger to young plants, as the old trees are protected by their thick bark.

Threats and conservation

The Brazilian Araucaria is in the Red List of IUCN " high risk " as performed. The biggest threat is the depletion of dar. probably 250,000 square kilometers of pristine forest reserves of the Brazilian Araucaria have survived less than 1,000 square kilometers. The largest protected remnant areas are located in the area of General Carneiro and Bituruna. Tourist undeveloped deposits are found in the Brazilian Iguaçu National Park.

System

The Italian botanist Antonio Bertoloni described this species in 1819 under the taxon Columbea angustifolia in OPUSc. Sci., 3, p 411 The German botanist Carl Ernst Otto Kuntze put this kind in 1898 in his book revisions generum plantarum, 3 ( 3 ), pp. 375, under the currently valid name Araucaria angustifolia in the genus Araucaria. A synonym for Araucaria angustifolia Araucaria brasiliana Kuntze is A.Rich .. Some authors Araucaria angustifolia is divided into up to ten varieties.

Araucaria angustifolia belongs together with the - in Central Europe more widely known - Chilean Araucaria (Araucaria araucana) to the section within the genus Araucaria Araucaria.

Swell

• Lutz Fähser: Araucaria angustifolia. In: Peter Schütt, Horst Weisgerber, Hans J. Schuck, Ulla Lang, Bernd vocal, Andreas Roloff: Encyclopedia of conifers. Dissemination - description - Ecology - use; the great encyclopedia. Nikol, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-933203-80-5, pp. 85-92.
• Christopher J. Earle: Araucaria angustifolia. In: The Gymnosperm Database. May 21, 2011, accessed on 21 October 2011 ( English).