Tuesday, September 24, 2019

trees flowers native to middle east

索科特拉龍血樹   Dracaena cinnabari, the Socotra dragon tree or dragon blood tree, is a dragon tree native to the Socotra archipelago, part of Yemen, located in the Arabian Sea. It is so called due to the red sap that the trees produce.The dragon blood tree has a unique and strange appearance, with an "upturned, densely packed crown having the shape of an uprightly held umbrella". This evergreen species is named after its dark red resin, which is known as "dragon's blood". Unlike most monocot plants, Dracaena displays secondary growth, D. cinnabari even has growth zones resembling tree rings found in dicot tree species. Along with other arborescent Dracaena species it has a distinctive growth habit called "dracoid habitus".[3] Its leaves are found only at the end of its youngest branches. Its fruits are small fleshy berries containing between 1 and 4 seeds.
The first description of D. cinnabari was made during a survey of Socotra led by Lieutenant Wellsted of the East India Company in 1835. It was first named Pterocarpus draco, but in 1880, the Scottish botanist Isaac Bayley Balfour made a formal description of the species and renamed it as Dracaena cinnabari.
Dragon's blood is used as a stimulant and abortifacient.[9] The root yields a gum-resin, used in gargle water as a stimulant, astringent and in toothpaste. The root is used in rheumatism, the leaves are a carminative. The trees can be harvested for their crimson red resin, called dragon's blood, which was highly prized in the ancient world and is still used today. Around the Mediterranean basin it is used as a dye and as a medicine, Socotrans use it ornamentally as well as dying wool, gluing pottery, a breath freshener, and lipstick. Because of the belief that it is the blood of the dragon it is also used in ritual magic and alchemy.[11] In 1883, the Scottish botanist Isaac Bayley Balfour identified three grades of resin; the most valuable were tear-like in appearance, then a mixture of small chips and fragments, with a mixture of fragments and debris being the cheapest.[6] The resin of D. cinnabari is thought to have been the original source of dragon's blood until during the mediaeval and renaissance periods when other plants were used instead. The local inhabitants of the city in the Socotra Island use the dragon's blood resin as a cure-all. Greeks, Romans, and Arabs use it in general wound healing, as a coagulant, cure for diarrhea, for dysentery diseases, for lowering fevers. It is also taken for ulcers in the mouth, throat, intestines and stomach. Dragon's blood from D. cinnabari was used as a source of varnish for 18th-century Italian violin-makers. It was also used as tooth-paste in the 18th century. It is still used as varnish for violins and for photoengraving. Dragon's blood is also listed in a 16th-century text, Stahel und Eyssen, as an ingredient in a quenching bath for tempering steel.
- usa
  • in 杜爾祖拉dulzura, california http://paper.takungpao.com/resfile/PDF/20200908/PDF/b4_screen.pdf

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