Balanites aegyptiaca are tree species, classified as members of Zygophyllaceae or Balanitaceae. This tree comes from many parts of Africa and the Middle East.
There are many common names for this plant. In English, this fruit is called the date of the desert, the tree of berry soap or bush, the tree Thron, the Egyptian myrobalan, the Egyptian balsam or the Zachum oil tree; in Arabic is known as lalob , hidjihi , inteishit , and heglig ( hijlij >). In Hausa it is called aduwa, in Tamasheq, Tuareg taboraq , in Swahili mchunju and in Amharic bedena .
Video Balanites aegyptiaca
Distribution
Balanites aegyptiaca is found in the Sahel-Savannah region of Africa. It can be found in many types of habitats, tolerating different types of soil, from sand to heavy clay, and humidity, from dry to moist. Relatively tolerant of floods, livestock activities, and forest fires.
Maps Balanites aegyptiaca
Description
The tree Balanites aegyptiaca reaches a height of 10 m (33 ft) with a generally narrow shape. Its branches have long, straight green spines arranged in a spiral shape. The dark green compound leaf is grown from the base of the thorn and consists of two leaflets that vary in size and shape. The fluted stem has a grayish-brown skin with a yellow-green patch where it is shed.
Inflorescence consists of several bunches of flowers that are either sessile or borne on short stalks. Flower buds are ovoid and closed short tomentose puberty. The individual flowers are yellow-green, hermaphroditic with five petals in radial symmetry and 8-14 millimeters (0.31-0.55Ã, in) diameter. The grayish inflorescence pedicle, fluffy and usually less than 10 mm (0.39 in) in length, although 15 mm (0.59 inches) has been recorded in Zambia and Zimbabwe. The ellipsoid fruit is usually less than 4 cm (1.6 inches) and is green when not cooked; it ripens into chocolate or pale brown fruit with a crispy skin wrapped around a brown or brown-green porridge around a hard rock.
Carpenters Camponotus sericeus eat nectar that emanates from the flowers. The moth tree tree larvae Bunaea alcinoe causes tree defoliation.
Cultivation
Food
Balanites aegyptiaca has been cultivated in Egypt for over 4000 years, and the stone placed in the tomb as a vow offering has been found as far back as the Twelve Dynasties. The tree was described and described in 1592 by Prosper Alpinus under the name 'agihalid'. Linnaeus considers it a species of Ximenia , but Adanson proposes a new genus Agialid . The genus Balanites was founded in 1813 by Delile.
The yellow, single seed can be eaten, but bitter. Many parts of the plant are used as starving food in Africa; the leaves are eaten raw or cooked, greasy seeds boiled to be less bitter and eaten mixed with sorghum, and flowers can be eaten. The tree is considered valuable in dry areas because it produces fruit even in dry periods. The fruit can be fermented for alcoholic beverages.
The seed cake left after the oil is extracted is usually used as animal feed in Africa. The seeds of Balanites aegyptiaca have a molluscicide effect on Biomphalaria pfeifferi .
Where species coexist, African elephants consume desert dates.
Medication
Dates are mixed into the porridge and eaten by the lactating mother, and the oil is consumed for headaches and to increase lactation.
Extracts fruit peels and expels or destroys freshwater snails and copepods, organisms that act as host hosts of Schistosoma parasite hosts, including Bilharzia, and guinea worms, respectively. Worm infections are also treated with desert dates, such as liver and spleen disorders. The decoction of bark is also used as an Abortifacient and antidote of arrow darts in traditional Western African medicine.
Seeds contain 30-48% fixed oil (not volatile), such as leaves, fruit pulp, bark and roots, and contain sapogenin diosgenin and yamogenin. Saponins also occur in roots, bark and fruit.
Agroforestry
This tree is managed through agroforestry. It is planted along the irrigation canals and used to attract insects to trap. Pale yellow to brownish wood is used to make furniture and durable items such as tools, and it is a low smoke wood and a good charcoal. Smaller trees and branches are used as live or cut fences because they are tough and prickly. The tree fixes nitrogen. It is grown for its fruit in plantations in some areas. Leather produces fibers, natural gums from branches used as glue, and seeds have been used to make jewelry and beads.
Tattoo
Various Sahel tribes use tree spines to make incisions that produce tattoos.
Etymology
The generic portion of the binomial Balanites comes from the Greek word for seed and refers to the fruit, this name was invented by Alire Delile in 1813. in Descr. Egypte, Hist. Nat. 221 1813 . The specific name aegyptiaca is applied by Carl Linnaeus because the species was originally depicted from specimens collected in Egypt. However, according to ICBN Art 62.4: "Generic names ending in -anhes, -oides or -odes are treated as feminine and which end up with - the site as masculine, regardless of the gender assigned to them by the original author." Thus, the name of the orthographic variant corresponding to ICBN Art 62.4 for this species is Balanites aegyptiacus .
References
External links
- Balanites aegyptiaca in West African factories - A Photo Guide.
- Balanites aegyptiacus in BoDD - Botanical Dermatology Database
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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