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Family: Burseraceae
Gumbo-Limbo, more...tourist tree, gumbo limbo (es: jiote colorado, palo colorado, huichichi, almácigo)
[Bursera gummifera L., moreElaphrium simaruba (L.) Rose] |
Description: A medium-sized to tall tree with unmistakable red and green bark. The outer bark is a red sheet, very thin, which peels off readily, leaving behind a dark, shiny green inner bark. Leaves are compound, usually with 7 leaflets; very fragrant when crushed, with an odor like turpentine. The trunk produces a resin when cut with the same strong fragrance. Reproduction: This is one of the truly deciduous species in the area, always dropping all its leaves in December or January, and regrowing them when rains return in April. Leaves turn yellow before falling. Small white flowers are inconspicuous, produced at the end of the dry season. Fruits are capsules, green when immature but becoming purplish in color as they open, usually in the second half of the wet season, but sometimes for nearly the entire year. The small seeds inside the capsules have white arils. Many small birds eat them. Distribution: A species of the drier regions of Panama, where it frequently associates with the cuipo, LK cavapl Cavanillesia platanifolia. LK2 Bursera is common in Parque Metropolitano near Panama City, but less and less numerous proceeding away from the Pacific Coast and toward the Caribbean. There are a few individuals in Gamboa, and a few along the first 2 km of Pipeline Rd. Reappears on limestone outcrops in wet areas, where it can grow on top of large boulders, with thin roots wrapping around the boulder and reaching the soil. Near Panama City, it occurs in mature forest, sometimes quite large; around Gamboa it is generally only an edge species, in clearings or along roads. This is also one of the common fence-post trees throughout the rural Pacific slope of Panama, since cut branches readily root and sprout. It also occurs naturally in South Florida, where it's known as the gumbo limbo. Similar Species: The red or green bark makes this species easy to distinguish, even as a juvenile. The leaves resemble those of the two Spondias species (eg, see LK sponmo S. mombin), LK2 in both appearance and fragrance. Descripción: Árbol de 5 a 20 m de alto. Tronco con la corteza exterior de color marrón cobre y exfoliante en láminas delgadas, casi transparentes, revelando una corteza interior verde y brillante. La corteza interior tiene cloroplastos que ayudan en la fotosíntesis durante la estación seca. El desprendimiento de cualquier parte de la planta produce el flujo de una savia resinosa y aromática, la cual se cristaliza con el transcurrir del tiempo. Hojas imparipinnadas y alternas, con 5-9 folíolos, opuestos en el raquis. Folíolos de 5-15 x 2-8 cm, ovados, lanceolados a oblongos, con ápice acuminado, bordes enteros y base aguda. Pecíolo de 3-5 cm de largo, pulvinados y cubiertos de pelos en la base. La especie es dioica. Flores verdes o amarillentas. Frutos en cápsulas ovoides o elipsoidales, de 0.5-1.3 cm de largo, verdes, tornándose rojizos y dehiscentes al madurar. Semillas cubiertas por un arilo blanco. Datos Ecológicos: La especie crece a bajas elevaciones, en bosques y lugares secos. En Panamá se encuentra en las provincias de Chiriquí, Coclé, Colón, Darién, Herrera, Los Santos, Panamá y Veraguas. Deja caer sus hojas totalmente durante la estación seca, pero las repone a inicios de la estación lluviosa. Florece y fructifica de marzo a octubre. Especies Parecidas: A menudo se confunde con LK sponmo Spondias mombin LK2 , pero en S. mombin los frutos son drupas globosas, amarillas al madurar, y la corteza exterior del tronco es muy diferente a la de B. simaruba. Usos: La madera es empleada para postes de cercas vivas. La savia resinosa del tronco se utiliza como sustituto de la goma arábiga y tiene propiedades medicinales. En algunos lugares del interior del país la resina se usa para cicatrizar heridas, en la extracción de tórsalos (larvas de moscas) o para quemarla como incienso y repelente contra insectos. La corteza, hojas, flores y frutos del almácigo se utilizan en la medicina tradicional. Naked Indian, Almácigo, Carate, Huechichi, Indio desnudo Dioecious or polygamodioecious tree, 5-25 m tall, to ca 40 (100) cm dbh; bark coppery red, shiny, thin, peeling to expose green layer beneath; sap, at least of fruit, very aromatic. Leaves pinnate, deciduous, clustered at apex of branches, densely woolly when young to glabrate except on veins below in age; petioles to 14 cm long; leaflets 5-7 (9), ovate-elliptic to lanceolate-elliptic (terminal ones usually obovate), long-acuminate, inequilateral and obtuse to rounded at base, 4.5-14.5 cm long, 2.5-8 cm wide, entire. Flowers 3-5-parted, functionally unisexual, in axillary raceme-like panicles (sometimes appearing terminal before leaves appear), appearing +/- with new leaves; calyx bowl-shaped, shallowly 5-lobed, the lobes acute to blunt; petals greenish-white, narrowly ovate, acute, cucullate, 2-3 mm long, spreading at anthesis, later recurved; stamens twice the number of and shorter than petals, those opposite the petals usually +/- spreading, the alternate ones erect; pollen golden-yellow, covering all sides of anther at anthesis; pistillode ovoid, white, glabrous, scarcely longer than weakly lobed and undulate disk. Capsules drupaceous, ellipsoid, obtusely 3-sided, maturing reddish-brown, ca 1 cm long, a single valve falling free at maturity to expose the pyrene, followed by both remaining valves falling off as a unit, leaving the pyrene attached at base; pyrene 1(2), 1-seeded, 3-angled, bony, lenticular-ovoid, white, ca 7 mm long. Croat 5325. Occasional, but locally common, especially along the shore on the northwest side of the island and on Orchid Island. Flowers in the late dry and early rainy seasons (March to the middle of June), just before or during the onset of new leaves. Mature fruits may be seen through out much of the year, but most fruits mature during the late rainy or early dry seasons of the following year, generally after the plant has lost its leaves. Most trees are bare by February, beginning to put on new leaves and flowering by March or April. Allen (1956) reported that the trees are leafless throughout most of the dry season in Costa Rica. |