Sandalwood Santalum Album L
Sandalwood, is an ancient and mysterious precious tree species, mainly produced in eastern India, Southeast Asia, Australia, Fiji and other hot and humid areas, China's Guangdong, Taiwan has cultivated, now India is the most cultivated. Sandalwood is highly prized in Buddhism, and in the religious realm it is known as the "sacred tree"; In Feng Shui, it is known as the "Tree of Fortune"; Historically, it has been known as the "Tree of Royalty" because it symbolizes power and status; In the modern market economy, it is known as the "first tree", and in Australia, it is known as the "cash cow".
Many people know sandalwood because of its fame and its value, but do you know what a sandalwood tree looks like? Sandalwood is also unsightly in appearance, but it is one of the four famous incense ("Shen Tan Dragon Musk Deer") in the incense road. Let's get to know the sandalwood tree together.
Sandalwood Santalum Album L, also known as white sandalwood, true sandalwood, is a semi-parasitic evergreen small tree of the sandalwood family Sandalwood. In fact, the sandalwood tree itself can be photosynthesized, but the nutrients it produces cannot meet its needs, and its difference lies in the thousands of "suckers" growing on its fibrous roots, which are tightly adsorbed to host plants such as legumes and Asteraceae, and draw water, inorganic salts and other nutrients from their roots. Although the roots of the sandalwood tree also draw a small amount of nutrients from the soil, they mainly survive by absorbing nutrients from the host plant.
Branches cylindrical, grayish-brown, striped, with many skin holes and semicircular leaf marks.
Leaves elliptic-ovate, membranous, acutely pointed at the apex, wedge-shaped or broadly wedge-shaped at the base, the margins wavy, slightly folded outward, with white powder on the back, the midrib convex on the dorsal back, the reticulated veins indistinct; The petiole is elongated.
trifid umbrella panicles axillary or apical; Amperic flowers, perianth bell-shaped, pale green; The perianth is 4 (-5) lobed, the lobes are ovate and triangular, the sandalwood tepals are discolored, the inner surface is yellow-green at the beginning of the opening, and then it is blood-red; stamens 4, extended; The flower disc is 5-lobed, the lobes are scaly, fleshy, and between the stamens; The ovary is semi-inferior, the columella is 3 mm long, and the stigma is shallowly 3(-4) lobed. Flowering period is from June to September.
The drupes are nearly spherical, the exocarp is fleshy and juicy, dark purplish-red to purplish-black when ripe, the apex is slightly flattened, the perianth remains ring-shaped, the base of the columella is more or less raised, and the endocarp has 3-4 longitudinal stripes. The fruiting period is from August to October.
The reason why the sandalwood tree is called the "** tree" is because it is almost a treasure all over its body, and the economic value of each part is very high, and it is a combination of aromatic, medicinal, and material use. However, because the sandalwood tree is a semi-parasitic plant, it grows extremely slowly, and it usually takes decades to reach maturity, so the production of sandalwood is very limited, and people have a great demand for it, so it has been a rare and expensive wood from ancient times to the present.
Sandalwood heart material is solid, dense texture, can resist termites, has a strange fragrance, is a valuable medicinal material and precious spices, and is a good material for the carving process, its quality is second only to ivory, mostly used to carve Buddha statues, figures and elephants and other animal shapes, make sandalwood fans, jewelry boxes, Buddha beads and other fine handicrafts.
Suzhou sandalwood fan
Sandalwood Buddha beads. Sandalwood tree roots, trunk crumbs can be refined essential oil, sandalwood essential oil is commonly known as "liquid **" it not only has a unique fragrance, warm and long-lasting, but also can be mixed with a variety of spices, is the preparation of high-end perfumes, essence must be the basic fixative.
Sawdust can be made into sachets to wear or placed in clothes chests and cupboards to smoke incense. Sandalwood powder is widely used to make incense sticks and incense, the demand for incense of sandalwood is huge, the breath of sandalwood is quiet, holy and restrained, giving people a sense of the king of joy and sincerity, its unique fragrance, has the effect of soothing the nerves and assisting meditation, so it is widely used in religious ceremonies, especially in India and China, the demand for sandalwood has not decreased at all.
Sandalwood oil and sandalwood have a long history of medicinal use in India, Malaysia, and Polynesia. Since the Liang Dynasty of the Northern and Southern Dynasties (502 549 AD) in China, the materia medica has been recorded in all dynasties. With the introduction of Buddhism from India, China has used sandalwood for more than 1,000 years, but all rely on imports.
Compendium of Materia Medica, Muyi, Sandalwood (Collection of Explanations) quotes Song Ye Tingqi's "Incense Spectrum": "The skin is solid and the color is yellow, the skin is clean and the color is white, and the skin is rotten and the color is purple. Its wood is strong and fragrant, and the white sandalwood is especially good. It is advisable to seal it with paper, so as not to leak gas. ”
Among them, this article introduces sandalwood salbum is white sandalwood, and sandalwood (e.g., dalbergia odorifera) and red sandalwood (e.g., pterocarpus santalinus) are plants of different families. In fact, sandalwood is a general term for plants of the genus Sandalwood in the Sandalwood family, including Australian Sandalwood SSpicatum and other sandalwood plants, but especially sandalwoodalbum, which is also produced in India of the old sandalwood as the best product.
In fact, sandalwood is more confused in classification, according to the customary classification method of the first merchant in history, it can be divided into: old mountain incense (produced in India), new mountain incense (produced in Australia), Dimen incense (produced in Indonesia and Timor-Leste) and Sydney incense (produced in Australia or South Pacific island countries). The characteristics of Indian old sandalwood are that its color is white and yellowish, the oil quality is large, and the fragrance is mellow and long, while the sandalwood produced in Australia, Indonesia and other places is inferior in texture, color and fragrance.
According to historical records, there were two or three kinds of sandalwood plants in Hawaii, and the heartwood was also aromatic. In 1791, when the British Captain John Kendrick began harvesting sandalwood on the island and shipped the timber to China, it was only 54 years before 1845, and these species that were so widespread in the area were gone. That's why Hawaii is called Honolulu by the Chinese, and now it doesn't produce sandalwood.
At present, the three major production areas of sandalwood in the world are India, Indonesia and Australia. However, slow-growing sandalwood has become scarce due to over-deforestation, and India** has long banned the export of sandalwood, and there are very few sandalwood left on the market, and the thick and large sandalwood that can be used for furniture is even more rare, so it is even more precious.
The above content**Dongguan Botanical Garden**, slightly modified.