Anchar is a tropical tree or shrub? Description, habitat. Anchar is the tree of death

This is not a terrible tree-ludode, often appearing in numerous legends of antiquity and even in more modern newspaper sensations. The botanists, who carefully surveyed the inaccessible and the most remote corners of the planet Earth, did not encounter anything so terrible, in the way that was described in the works.

In this article we will talk about whether there really is an Anchar tree, where it grows and what its features are.

The native land of the plant is the East Indies and the Malay Archipelago.

A bit of history

For a long time this tree was not very well-known. For a long time it was believed that the Anchar was a "tree of death."

The very first report on the Anchar was published in 1783 in a London magazine with the words of an Englishman, who worked as a surgeon on the island of Java. They were told that, according to local rumors, this tree is so poisonous that around him within a radius of 15 miles all life dies. And besides, the extraction of the poison of this tree is equated with the death penalty (it was extracted mainly by convicts). It turned out that the information is completely false, but the image of the "tree of death" has since been preserved by readers and began to spread rapidly. So anchar became legendary.

And G. Rumpf (Dutch scientist-botanist) added an unfortunate glory to the tree. He was sent to the colony (in Makassaru) in the middle of the 17th century to find out which plant the natives give poison to, which they use for poisonous arrows. Rumpf for 15 years just snatched the necessary information for him from the local residents. As a result, the result was a report on this allegedly poisonous tree.

Anchar is a tree to which many poets dedicated their poems (for example, AS Pushkin).

A lot later the amazing plant was studied in more detail. Even the first researchers, who knew about the terrible stories about the "tree of death," were greatly amazed that birds carelessly and quietly sit on the branches of this plant.

Over time, it became clear that the branches and other parts of the tree are harmless for both humans and animals. Dangerous is only its juice, flowing from the places of damage. In ancient times, the natives used poisonous resin to lubricate the arrowheads intended for the enemies.

Today, the terrible definition of the "tree of death" is no longer applied to this plant. And what does the Anchar tree look like? About this a little further in the article.

Anchar (tree): description

Anchar is a genus of plants (a family of mulberry) belonging to evergreen trees or shrubs. It turns out that he is a close relative of mulberry and ficus. There are some poisonous types of anchara.

It should be noted that both the appearance and the environment of the growth of this tree are not similar to what is represented in the famous poem.

There is a tree-like juniper arch, often in the form of a tree with knotty, coarse-grained and fairly hardwood. It occurs in the mountains on stony soils and rocks, where grass usually does not grow. This plant is not poisonous, but it looks unusual for Europeans. There is a suggestion that the poet could mix these two plants or simply put them together and present them in the form of a terrible tree carrying death.

The height of the slender trunk of the Anchar tree is 40 meters. The crown is small, rounded, with simple leaves 10-20 centimeters long.

His flowers are small, closely and densely bored into the inflorescence with a goblet around him.

The oviposition consists of a number of small fruiting, sitting very tightly and each having its own juicy perianth.

Properties

Anchar is a tree that contains juice in its leaves, when it hits, only an abscess on the skin can appear on the body. The strongest poison of antiarin can be obtained only with a special distillation of the juniper juice (the scientific name of the tree is "antiaris"). Just the natives and owned this way of making a poison lasting more than one week.

Among other things, despite the not very good reputation of the tree, the local population makes wide use of its thick, beautiful and rather elastic bark for making clothes and rugs. The craftsmen get a dense white fabric, suitable for sewing pants and shirts.

About the title

Its generic name (Antiaris toxicaria) was invented by the Frenchman J. Lescheno (traveler, naturalist and botanist). He also described this plant.

In translation from Javanese language, anchar is a poison.

In fact, this terrible, according to the stories, the tree was tall and beautiful, growing on the islands of the Malay Archipelago, but to a greater extent it is spread in Java.

For a long time this plant was referred to the family of nettle.

Habitat

It is known that in the tropics there is no, as described in the poem, "grow lonely" on the sands of trees. What is the rainforest? This set of the most diverse vegetation, trees, entwined with various lianas. Anchar in the desert does not grow, especially since the soil for it is needed not meager. He grows in a friendly neighborhood with another vegetation, which from this does not suffer at all. There are, however, certain "valley of death" in Java, composed of accumulations of products of volcanic activity of these places (sulfur vapor and carbon dioxide). Perhaps Pushkin's Anchar grew up in the middle of one of such valleys?

Botanists subdivided several species of Anchar growing in India, on the island of Sri Lanka, and throughout Malaysia (the milky anchar juice of these places is very toxic), up to the Philippine islands. The non-poisonous Anchar ("sackwood") grows in India. The bark of the latter is used for making strong bags for everyday use.

Application

As noted above, the antar is not dangerous in itself. This juice is poisonous. And almost all of its subspecies are related to such, especially poisonous poison. It was his juice that the natives in Java poisoned arrowheads. Anchar juice was poisoned at the end of the last century by arrows for the "sarbakan" (wind gun), and those who were engaged in the extraction of this juice could easily suffer.

The poison is grazed (or boa-upas and boon-usas) - this is a milky juice, when distilled with alcohol produces a well-known antiarin. This is a very strong poison, crystallizing in colorless shiny leaves of the plant.

There is one more subspecies - anchar bennett, growing on the island of Vitu and containing in its fruits beautiful carmine paint. In its bark there are excellent bast fibers, from which they make crafts. Also, they make bags in Ceylon and in the East Indies.

About the properties of poison

As early as the middle of the 18th century, a poison made from milky potato juice, called "Makassar", was part of the collection of the British Museum (London), and then its chemical composition was also investigated in the 19th century.

The investigated antiarin is a glycoside, close to the glycoside of digitalis and other cardiac plant glycosides, very quickly affecting the cardiac muscle. There are in the juice anchara and others, but less studied poisons.

Conclusion

Anchar was rehabilitated. This was due to careful scientific research.

A lot of time passed before the tree managed to thoroughly investigate and dispel the horrible, wrong idea about it. The poison extracted from it in old times has served a bad, gloomy service, but there is also useful in this tree that was noted above.

Thus, the Anchar does not spread death around itself. On the contrary, next to it, beautiful vines, trees and other plants grow beautifully and blossom.