Acacia silvery , or Acacia bleached ( lat. Acācia dealbāta ) - a species of trees from the genus Acacia ( Acacia ) of the family Leguminous ( Fabaceae ).
| Acacia silver | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Acacia dealbata Link , 1822 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Content
Distribution and Ecology
The birthplace of silver acacia is the southeast coast of Australia and the island of Tasmania . Widely distributed and naturalized in southern Europe , South Africa , the western United States , the Azores and Madagascar [2] .
In Russia (on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus ) this species has been in culture since 1852.
Botanical Description
Evergreen fast-growing tree 10-12 m high (up to 45 m in the homeland) with a spreading crown . The trunk is 60-70 cm in diameter. The bark of the trunk and branches is from gray-brown to brown, with a large number of shallow cracks, of which gum often protrudes. Young branches are olive green. The branches and leaves of the plant have a light gray-green bloom, for which this acacia was called silvery.
The leaves are alternate, twice pinnate-dissected, up to 10-20 cm long. Consist of 8-24 pairs of gray-green, small, elongated first-order leaflets. Each leaf of the first order has up to 50 pairs of oblong leaflets of the second order with a width of about 1 mm. The main petiole of the leaf at the base is somewhat swollen; on the upper side of the main vein of the leaf, at the base of the first-order leaflets, there are round glands that release honey liquid during flowering.
The flowers are grayish yellow, very small, odorous, collected 20-30 in spherical heads with a diameter of 4-8 mm; the heads are collected in racemose inflorescences , which in turn are collected in panicles . Calyx is bell - shaped, five-toothed. Corolla is five-petalled; petals broadly lanceolate or ovate, pointed. Stamens are numerous, free, on long yellow or orange threads protruding far from the corolla. Pestle with an upper single- ovary ovary , a long column and a small stigma . The column, like the stamens, protrudes strongly from the corolla.
Acacia fruits are flat, oblong, elongated-lanceolate, blunt, light or purple-brown beans with a length of 1.5-8 cm and a width of 0.8-1 cm, with separate nests. Seeds - very hard, dark brown or black, flat, dull or slightly shiny, elliptical, 3-4 mm in size.
The wild and winter-hardy acacia silvery blooms from late January to mid-April. Fruits a tree in August - September.
From left to right: Bark, leaf, flower (enlarged), pollen grain (under the microscope), inflorescences, fruits, seeds | ||||||||||
Medicinal plant material
For therapeutic purposes, use acacia bark and a solution of its gum .
Gum plants contains the polysaccharide araban (up to 76%). A mixed type of tannins was found in the bark (15–25%). From the flowers, oil is obtained (up to 0.9%), which consists of: two hydrocarbons , anisic aldehyde , palmitic aldehyde , esters of anisic , palmitic and acetic acids , enanthic and angelic acids ; a small amount of phenols and alcohol with a strong smell of ambergris [3] . Pollen contains flavonoid compounds.
The gum solution is used as an enveloping agent inside, in enemas - with inflammation and ulcers of the gastrointestinal tract; to reduce the irritating effect and slow the absorption of other drugs.
Economic Significance and Application
It is common in the gardens of the Mediterranean region, where it is bred as an ornamental tree, the flowering shoots of which are exported to the northern countries.
The plant provides valuable wood for processing into cellulose .
The flowers contain an essential oil , which is extracted by extraction with petroleum ether in a yield of 0.1-0.15%. This oil is a yellow oily liquid with a strong aroma. It is used in the manufacture of perfumes . The collection of flowers is done manually during flowering [4] .
Silver acacia bark contains 15-20% of tannins , mainly tannins , which are used for technical purposes and can be a source of medical tannin [4] .
Silver acacia gum contains up to 76% arabin and can be used to produce gum arabic , used as a coating agent and emulsifier [4] .
Cultivation
Seeds are sown three to five pieces per hole, at a distance of 3-4 m. Care of the plantation (only in the first three to four years) consists in weeding weeds and cultivating. In the first two or three years, silver acacia develops rapidly, giving an average annual growth of 2 m. Three-year-old trees often reach 6-7 m. The height of an adult tree is up to 20 m [4] .
Systematics
Taxonomy
The species Acacia silvery is a member of the genus Acacia of the tribe Acacieae of the subfamily Mimosa ( Mimosoideae ) of the family Legume ( Fabaceae ) of the order Leguminous ( Fabales ).
| three more families (according to APG II System ) | about 80 more births | |||||||||||||||
| beanaceous order | subfamily Mimosa | view Acacia silver | ||||||||||||||
| Department of Flowering, or Angiosperms | Bean family | kind Acacia | ||||||||||||||
| 44 more order flowering plants (according to APG II System ) | two more subfamilies (according to APG II System ) | about 1300 more species | ||||||||||||||
Mimosa and Acacia
In Russia, silver acacia is often incorrectly called mimosa . Silver acacia is widespread on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus and its flowering shoots were a traditional gift in the former USSR on International Women's Day .
Notes
- ↑ For the conventionality of specifying the class of dicotyledons as a superior taxon for the plant group described in this article, see the APG Systems section of the Dicotyledonous article .
- ↑ According to the GRIN website (see plant card).
- ↑ Atlas of medicinal plants of the USSR / Ch. ed. Acad. N.V. Tsitsin. - M .: Medgiz, 1962. - S. 18. - 702 p.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Encyclopedic Dictionary of Medicinal, Essential Oil and Poisonous Plants / Comp. G. S. Ogolevets. - M .: Selkhozgiz, 1951. - S. 10. - 584 p.
Literature
- Palibin I.V. Genus * Acacia - Acacia Willd. // Flora of the USSR : in 30 tons / chap. ed. V.L. Komarov . - M .; L .: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR , 1945. - T. 11 / ed. volumes B.K. Shishkin . - S. 11-13. - 432 s. - 4000 copies.