''Hymenaea'' is a
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
of plants in the legume family
Fabaceae. Of the fourteen living species in the genus, all but one are
native
Native may refer to:
People
* Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth
* Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory
** Native Americans (disambiguation)
In arts and entert ...
to the
tropics
The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in
the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referr ...
of the Americas, with one additional species (''
Hymenaea verrucosa
''Hymenaea verrucosa'' (Zanzibar copal, East African copal, or Amber tree) is a species of flowering plant in the legume family, Fabaceae. It belongs to the paraphyletic subfamily Caesalpinioideae. It is a large tree native to the tropical r ...
'') on the east coast of Africa. Some authors place the African species in a separate
monotypic
In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...
genus, ''
Trachylobium''.
[Gwilym Lewis, Brian Schrire, Barbara MacKinder, and Mike Lock. 2005. ''Legumes of the World''. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: Richmond, England.] In the
Neotropics
The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone.
Definition
In bioge ...
, ''Hymenaea'' is distributed through the
Caribbean islands, and from southern
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
to
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
.
Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
named the genus in 1753 in ''
Species Plantarum'' for
Hymenaios, the Greek god of marriage ceremonies. The name is a reference to the paired leaflets.
Most species of ''Hymenaea'' are large
tree
In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...
s and they are primarily
evergreen
In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, whic ...
. They may grow to a height of and emerge above the
forest
A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...
canopy
Canopy may refer to:
Plants
* Canopy (biology), aboveground portion of plant community or crop (including forests)
* Canopy (grape), aboveground portion of grapes
Religion and ceremonies
* Baldachin or canopy of state, typically placed over an ...
. Some species will grow both as tall forest trees and as smaller shrubby trees depending on their surrounding
habitat
In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...
. The
leaves are pinnately bifoliolate, meaning that they have two
leaflets attached to the sides of the
petiole. The
flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...
s grow in a
panicle or
corymb
Corymb is a botanical term for an inflorescence with the flowers growing in such a fashion that the outermost are borne on longer pedicels than the inner, bringing all flowers up to a common level. A corymb has a flattish top with a superficial ...
type of
inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...
.
Uses and properties
The pulpy center of the
fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering.
Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...
s is edible and contains starch. The fruit is sold in local markets in the Americas. The leaves may be used to make a
tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of ''Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and north ...
. The trees produce a dense
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...
used for
timber
Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, w ...
in making ships and furniture. The thick bark of some species is used by
indigenous peoples of the Amazon to make
canoe
A canoe is a lightweight narrow water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using a single-bladed paddle.
In British English, the ter ...
s. Seeds contain large amounts (40% of dry weight) of a highly viscous polysaccharide (
xyloglucan
Xyloglucan is a hemicellulose that occurs in the primary cell wall of all vascular plants; however, all enzymes responsible for xyloglucan metabolism are found in Charophyceae algae.LEV Del Bem and M Vincentz (2010) Evolution of xyloglucan-relate ...
) which can be used in several industrial sectors such as food, paper, cosmetic and pharmaceutical.
The trees also make hard
resin
In polymer chemistry and materials science, resin is a solid or highly viscous substance of plant or synthetic origin that is typically convertible into polymers. Resins are usually mixtures of organic compounds. This article focuses on n ...
s that are used to manufacture varnish, especially the resin from ''Hymenaea courbaril'' (jatobá) in Brazil. The resin that is produced in Brazil is known as
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 sout ...
n
copal
Copal is tree resin, particularly the aromatic resins from the copal tree ''Protium copal'' (Burseraceae) used by the cultures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica as ceremonially burned incense and for other purposes. More generally, copal includes re ...
, and ''
Hymenaea verrucosa
''Hymenaea verrucosa'' (Zanzibar copal, East African copal, or Amber tree) is a species of flowering plant in the legume family, Fabaceae. It belongs to the paraphyletic subfamily Caesalpinioideae. It is a large tree native to the tropical r ...
'' is the source of the valuable
Zanzibar
Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islan ...
copal. Resin may be collected from living trees, or from the soil near the place where a tree once stood. Throughout its American range, indigenous peoples use the resin for
incense
Incense is aromatic biotic material that releases fragrant smoke when burnt. The term is used for either the material or the aroma. Incense is used for aesthetic reasons, religious worship, aromatherapy, meditation, and ceremony. It may also b ...
and as a cement. Resin from the extinct species ''
Hymenaea protera'' is the source of
Dominican amber
Dominican amber is amber from the Dominican Republic derived from resin of the extinct tree '' Hymenaea protera''.
Dominican amber differentiates itself from Baltic amber by being nearly always transparent, and it has a higher number of fossil inc ...
, while the extinct ''
Hymenaea mexicana'' produced the resin which is the source of Mexican amber.
''
Hymenaea courbaril
''Hymenaea courbaril'', the courbaril or West Indian locust, is a tree common in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. It is a hardwood that is used for furniture, flooring, and decoration. Its hard fruit pods have edible dry pulp ...
'' has been used as a
model organism to study the effect of increased concentration on the rate of
photosynthesis
Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that, through cellular respiration, can later be released to fuel the organism's activities. Some of this chemical energy is stored i ...
in
neotropical
The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone.
Definition
In bioge ...
regions.
When the concentration of was increased from an ambient reference level of 360
ppm to 720
ppm, the photosynthetic assimilation in the seedlings doubled.
This suggests the species could play an important role in greenhouse gas sequestration, as atmospheric is expected to reach ca. 700 ppm by the year 2075 if current levels of fossil fuel consumption are maintained.
''Hymenaea courbaril'' is a very important species in programmes of recuperation of degraded
rain forests
Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainforest, ...
in the
Neotropics
The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone.
Definition
In bioge ...
. It appears late in the natural regeneration process being classified as a 'late successional' or
climax species
Climax species, also called late seral, late-successional, K-selected or equilibrium species, are plant species that can germinate and grow with limited resources; e.g., they need heat exposure or low water availability. They are the species wi ...
.
Species
*''
Hymenaea allendis''
*''
Hymenaea aurea''
*''
Hymenaea courbaril
''Hymenaea courbaril'', the courbaril or West Indian locust, is a tree common in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. It is a hardwood that is used for furniture, flooring, and decoration. Its hard fruit pods have edible dry pulp ...
''
*''
Hymenaea eriogyne''
*''
Hymenaea intermedia''
*''
Hymenaea maranhensis''
*''
Hymenaea martiana''
*''
Hymenaea mexicana''
*''
Hymenaea oblongifolia''
*''
Hymenaea parvifolia''
*''
Hymenaea protera''
*''
Hymenaea reticulata''
*''
Hymenaea rubriflora''
*''
Hymenaea stigonocarpa''
*''
Hymenaea torrei''
*''
Hymenaea velutina''
*''
Hymenaea verrucosa
''Hymenaea verrucosa'' (Zanzibar copal, East African copal, or Amber tree) is a species of flowering plant in the legume family, Fabaceae. It belongs to the paraphyletic subfamily Caesalpinioideae. It is a large tree native to the tropical r ...
''
†
Extinct
See also
*
Animé, an oleo-resin from ''Hymenaea'' species.
References
Further reading
*
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{{Taxonbar, from=Q290340
Fabaceae genera