''Mauritia flexuosa'', known as the moriche palm, ''ité'' palm, ''ita'', ''buriti'', ''muriti'', ''miriti'' (Brazil), ''canangucho'' (Colombia), ''acho'' (Ecuador), or ''aguaje'' (Peru), is a
palm
Palm most commonly refers to:
* Palm of the hand, the central region of the front of the hand
* Palm plants, of family Arecaceae
**List of Arecaceae genera
* Several other plants known as "palm"
Palm or Palms may also refer to:
Music
* Palm (ba ...
tree. It grows in and near
swamps
A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...
and other wet areas in tropical
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
.
''Mauritia flexuosa'', a tree, can reach up to in height. The large leaves form a rounded crown. The flowers are yellowish and appear from December to April. The fruit, which grows from December to June, is a chestnut color and is covered with shiny scales. The yellow flesh covers a hard, oval nut. The seeds float, and this is the means by which the palm tree propagates. In natural populations, the tree reaches very high densities.
Fruit
![Mauritia flexuosa MHNT](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Mauritia_flexuosa_MHNT.BOT.2005.0.974.jpg)
Moriche palm fruit ("morete" in the
Oriente of Ecuador) is edible and used to make juice, jam, ice cream, a fermented "
wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...
", desserts and snacks, requiring harvesting of more than 50
tonne
The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United State ...
s per day in
Peru
, image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg
, image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg
, other_symbol = Great Seal of the State
, other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal
, national_motto = "Fi ...
.
[
The ]inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...
bud
In botany, a bud is an undeveloped or embryonic shoot and normally occurs in the axil of a leaf or at the tip of a stem. Once formed, a bud may remain for some time in a dormant condition, or it may form a shoot immediately. Buds may be spec ...
s are eaten as a vegetable and the sap can be drunk fresh or fermented (see palm wine
Palm wine, known by several #Names, local names, is an alcoholic beverage created from the sap of various species of palm tree such as the Borassus, palmyra, date palms, and coconut palms. It is known by various names in different regions and i ...
). Threads and cords are locally produced from the tree's fibers.
Humans consume palm weevils larvae which burrow in the tree trunk.[
]
Oil
Buriti oil is an orange-reddish oil extracted from the fruit of the moriche palm. The oil contains high concentrations of oleic acid
Oleic acid is a fatty acid that occurs naturally in various animal and vegetable fats and oils. It is an odorless, colorless oil, although commercial samples may be yellowish. In chemical terms, oleic acid is classified as a monounsaturated omega ...
, tocopherols
Tocopherols (; TCP) are a class of organic chemical compounds (more precisely, various methylated phenols), many of which have vitamin E activity. Because the vitamin activity was first identified in 1936 from a dietary fertility factor in rats, i ...
, and carotenoids
Carotenoids (), also called tetraterpenoids, are yellow, orange, and red organic pigments that are produced by plants and algae, as well as several bacteria, and fungi. Carotenoids give the characteristic color to pumpkins, carrots, parsnips, ...
, especially beta-carotene. The oil has a reddish color used as ink on hides and skins.
Ecology
This tree is important to many animal species; several bird species, such as the red-bellied macaw
The red-bellied macaw (''Orthopsittaca manilatus''), also known as ''Guacamaya Manilata'', is a medium-sized, mostly green South American parrot, a member of a group of large Neotropical parrots known as macaws. It is the largest of what are comm ...
, sulphury flycatcher
The sulphury flycatcher (''Tyrannopsis sulphurea'') is a passerine bird which is a localised resident breeder from Trinidad, the Guianas and Venezuela south to Amazonian Peru, northern Bolivia and Brazil.
This large tyrant flycatcher is found ...
, and moriche oriole
The 'moriche oriole'' (''Icterus cayanensis chrysocephalus'') is a passerine bird in the New World family Icteridae. It is unrelated to Old World orioles (family Oriolidae). It is a breeding resident in the tropics of eastern South America. This b ...
, use it for nesting and food. Tapir
Tapirs ( ) are large, herbivorous mammals belonging to the family Tapiridae. They are similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile nose trunk. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South and Central America, with one species inhabit ...
s, peccaries
A peccary (also javelina or skunk pig) is a medium-sized, pig-like hoofed mammal of the family Tayassuidae (New World pigs). They are found throughout Central and South America, Trinidad in the Caribbean, and in the southwestern area of North A ...
, fish and monkeys depend on the fruit.
Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 17696 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, p ...
documented the tree and the ecosystem it supports in 1800 when traveling through the Llanos
The Llanos (Spanish ''Los Llanos'', "The Plains"; ) is a vast tropical grassland plain situated to the east of the Andes in Colombia and Venezuela, in northwestern South America. It is an ecoregion of the tropical and subtropical grasslands, sav ...
region of Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
. He "observed with astonishment how many things are connected with the existence of a single plant." He called it the "tree of life" and essentially described it as a keystone species
A keystone species is a species which has a disproportionately large effect on its natural environment relative to its abundance, a concept introduced in 1969 by the zoologist Robert T. Paine. Keystone species play a critical role in maintaini ...
although the concept would not be explicitly defined until 1969 by Robert T. Paine.
Miscellaneous
The government of the Federal District
A federal district is a type of administrative division of a federation, usually under the direct control of a federal government and organized sometimes with a single municipal body. Federal districts often include capital districts, and they e ...
– the Brazilian state
The federative units of Brazil ( pt, unidades federativas do Brasil) are subnational entities with a certain degree of autonomy (self-government, self-regulation and self-collection) and endowed with their own government and constitution, which ...
where the country's capital, Brasília
Brasília (; ) is the federal capital of Brazil and seat of government of the Federal District. The city is located at the top of the Brazilian highlands in the country's Central-West region. It was founded by President Juscelino Kubitsche ...
, is located – is called ''Palácio do Buriti'' ("Buriti Palace"). Across the street from the building is a square
In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length adj ...
with fountains and a single moriche palm tree, which was taken from the outskirts of the city and replanted there. The species is a common feature of the cerrado
The ''Cerrado'' (, ) is a vast ecoregion of tropical savanna in eastern Brazil, particularly in the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Tocantins, Minas Gerais, and the Federal District. The core areas of the Cerrado biome are t ...
vegetation that predominates in central Brazil.
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
flexuosa
Flora of South America
Trees of Brazil
Trees of Trinidad and Tobago
Flora of the Amazon
Flora of the Cerrado
Flora of Venezuela
Edible plants
Plants described in 1782
Crops originating from South America
Trees of Bolivia
Trees of Peru
Trees of Ecuador
Trees of Colombia
Trees of Suriname
Trees of French Guiana
Trees of Guyana
Trees of Venezuela