Brussonetia Paper

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Broussonetia paper (lat. Broussonetia papyrifera) - the most important species of the small genus Broussonetia (Latin Broussonetia), ranked by botanists to the glorious Mulberry family (Latin Moraceae). The very name of the species is based on the use of wood in the production of paper. Moreover, since time immemorial, paper has been made by hand, and therefore each paper sheet is a commonwealth of natural and human creativity and has a vivid personality. In addition, the plant has served and still serves as a source of food for the natives of East Asia and a number of the islands of the Great Pacific Ocean, and also helped and helps them to fight some ailments.

What's in your name

If the Latin name of the genus "Broussonetia" preserves the memory of a French naturalist named Pierre Marie Auguste Brousson, then the plant owes its specific epithet "papyrifera" to a fibrous soft bast (inner bark of a tree), from which people learned to make paper that was highly appreciated in everything the world. Paper made in Japan and Korea is especially appreciated, although it is also made in other countries of East Asia, for example, in Thailand. The first to make paper from wood fibers were the Chinese around the first century AD.

Description

The appearance of "Paper Brussonetia" is very changeable. The plant can be a deciduous shrub, or a tree, the usual height of which ranges from ten to twenty meters, and in especially favorable conditions up to thirty-five meters.

Petiole leaves are rough in appearance, covered with soft hairs at a young age. The length of the leaves reaches fifteen centimeters. The upper side of the leaf blade is dark green, and the lower side is paler due to pubescence. The shape of the leaves even on one tree can be different: some leaves are whole, while others are deeply separate, having three curly lobes decorated with a jagged edge.

"Brussonetia paper" is a dioecious plant, the male and female flowers of which grow on different individuals. The greenish female flowers form round, capitate inflorescences, and the male flowers are combined into inflorescences hanging from the branches in the form of earrings. The wind is responsible for pollination of female flowers.

After pollination, the female flowers give way to orange-red fruits of a round or pear-shaped shape, reminiscent of the fruits of a relative in the Mulberry family with the name "Mulberry" (lat. Morus). The fruits are edible, like the Mulberry fruits, which, along with the external resemblance, gave botanists a reason to attribute the tree to the Mulberry genus. But, later, similar plants were isolated in an independent genus "Broussonetia". The fruit of the tree splits into three parts, exposing the white spongy interior.

Usage

The tree, popularly called "Paper Mulberry", has been cultivated for centuries in Asia and the Pacific Islands as a source of fiber from which Aboriginal people made clothing, as well as a source of food and medicine. This use of the plant happened much earlier than people needed paper. In the Chinese classics Shi Chin ("The Book of Poetry"), born two and a half to three thousand years ago, along with other plants, there is a mention of this species.

The raw material for the manufacture of textiles and paper is the inner soft bark (bast) of a tree, which is crushed and mixed with a glue-like mass, which is a mixture of water with the starchy substance of the roots of the Abelmoschus manihot plant, which is also home to East Asia.

The technology for making textiles from wood bast stripes in the Pacific region is somewhat different. Bark strips are exposed to mechanical stress. Fabrics made from such processed fibers are used to make garments ranging from scarves and the traditional dress of some East Asian peoples called "sarong" to hats, bags, and bedding. Until recently, this fabric was the main source of clothing for Aboriginal people in islands such as Tahiti, Tonga and Fiji.

Furniture and kitchen utensils (bowls, cups) are made of soft wood.