2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Jatoba (Latin Hymenaea courbaril) - a woody plant belonging to the legume family, often called hatoboy.
Description
Its height often reaches forty meters. And this culture also boasts an unusually wide crown and straight cylindrical trunks. Its young shoots are densely covered with numerous brownish hairs. Rough-skinned leaves are matte below, and glossy above. They are characterized by a complex structure: each leaf is formed by two leaves - pointed and wide-toothed, and their length reaches seven to eight centimeters.
Little white flowers that gather in sufficiently long panicles (sometimes the length of such panicles can reach fifteen centimeters) have five petals and the same number of grayish-greenish sepals.
The fruits of yatoba are beans, the average length of which is fifteen centimeters. All beans are enclosed in individual shells, which, as they mature, become woody and acquire a characteristic dark brown color. Each fruit contains from one to six seeds inside, which can be either elliptical or spherical. Inside each seed there are tiny white grains, and on the outside they are covered with rather coarse shells of reddish-brown shades. In addition, all seeds are surrounded by a yellowish-greenish powdery pulp. This pulp is considered very nutritious, as it contains an impressive amount of starch. It has a sweetish taste, but this pulp smells very unpleasant. And the taste itself is somewhat reminiscent of the taste of milk powder.
Where grows
Jatoba naturally grows in a number of Central American and South American states (for example, in Brazil). Sometimes it can be found in the West Indies. In these countries, jatoba is often called the Brazilian or South American plum or cherry, however, it has absolutely no relationship with either plum or cherry, as it belongs to a completely different family.
Application
Jatoba can be eaten fresh or cooked. Pulp is also widely used - not only bakery products, but also some other dishes are prepared from it. And from the crushed pulp combined with water, a very peculiar alcoholic drink is obtained (by fermentation).
The amazingly beautiful crown makes jatoba a very decorative culture, and its wood is used for the manufacture of high-quality parquet flooring, furniture, stairs, sports equipment and a wide variety of joinery. Such wood is excellently drilled, polished and sawn, and in general it is suitable for almost any carpentry work. It is especially appreciated by carpenters, cabinetmakers and shipbuilders. By the way, it is quite permissible to use wood for the construction of terraces, however, in this case, it may be prone to cracking.
In the process of life, the fruit trees secrete the orange resin of the anime - being oxidized for a very long period in the air, this resin turns into a mass that looks very similar to amber. True, for this unusual trees take millions of years. The resin is so sticky that any insect accidentally caught in it remains encapsulated in it forever. It is thanks to this resin and the insects that periodically fell into it that scientists managed to prove the long-standing existence of not only the very itself, but also a great variety of the most diverse insects.
Contraindications
In the composition of iato there are substances that have a rather high degree of allergenicity, therefore, when using it, it does not hurt to be careful.
