Mauritia flexuosa
Buriti Palm ( Mauritia flexuosa ), habitus.
The Buriti Palm ( Mauritia flexuosa ) is an endemic palm species in northern South America, which is often used by the local population as food and crop.
Features
Buriti palm trees are large, single -stemmed dioecious palm trees with palmately divided leaves.
The stem is up to 24 m high with a diameter of 30 to 60 cm. The younger parts of the stem are gray-green to light brown with darker, wavy leaf scars at greater distances. Older parts of the stem are light gray to almost white and are relatively smooth. The crown is large and hemispherical, because the living leaves hardly fall below the horizontal. In addition, there are usually still some hanging dying and dead leaves. The leaves are up to 4.5 m wide. Your petiole m long, light green and wide at the base to 1.2 m to 9. The leaves have palmate shared a circular outline and are 200 or more segments. These are narrow and stiff, with the tips vary. The segments are from different angles and thus yield a fiederiges appearance of the leaf.
The inflorescences are single, woody axes that extend horizontally between the leaf bases. Its length is 1.8 m or more. On these axes hanging off-white, 30 to 60 cm long side branches and form a kind of curtain. Are the unisexual, small flowers on them.
For fruit ripening the fruit stands are then suspended. The fruits are up to 7.6 cm long, globose or oblong, deep red and filled with large, non-overlapping scales. Inside the leathery shell sits white flesh core, known as Laranja nut.
Dissemination and locations
The Buriti palm has a fairly large area of distribution in northern South America, east of the Andes. It covers the whole of Amazonia, with the exception of the easternmost parts.
Always grows in open spots, usually along rivers and streams, also in swamps. Can be found at 900 m asl. In the swamps of the lowlands, it forms extensive holdings in which there be no other tree species.
Use
The Buriti palm is used by the local population often. The fruits are eaten raw, processed into flour or fermented to produce alcoholic beverages. The oil is pressed from the fruit, in Brazil has some economic significance. The fibers of the young leaves are made into ropes, hammocks, and others. Mats and paper are produced from the pith of the petioles. Wine and sago starch obtained from the root of felled trees.
Documents
- Robert Lee Riffle, Paul Craft: An Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms, 4th edition, Timber Press, Portland, 2007, ISBN 978-0-88192-558-6, p 385