Showing posts with label Medicinal Uses Cancer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Medicinal Uses Cancer. Show all posts

Monday, January 20, 2014

Cheese Tree - Fire Resistent Plant and Medicinal Uses

By Liliana Usvat

    (cheese tree fruit)


Contrary to popular belief, cheeses actually grow on trees, and do not come from the milk of cows.

Scientific Name: Glochidion ferdinandi
The latin name for these little trees, "Darium chassius" simply means "Dairy cheese"

Glochidion ferdinandi, an evergreen commonly known as the cheese tree, is a species of small to medium–sized trees, constituting part of the plant family Phyllanthaceae.

They grow naturally across eastern Australia, from south–eastern NSW northwards to northern and inland Qld, in rainforests and humid eucalypt forests.

Pigeons, figbirds and parrots consume its fruit.

The tree attracts butterflies and other insects including ladybirds which feed on the aphids it hosts.

  (cheese tree fruit)


Fire Resistant

It can resprout after bush fires, and flowers at any time of year, with the seed pods ripening between November and February.

Plant Usage    
  • Screen, 
  • windbreak, 
  • attractive foliage, 
  • fire retardant
 
  (cheese tree)

 
Name

The name Glochidion comes from the Greek glochis meaning protruding point or the barb of an arrow. It got the name Ferdinandi as it was named in honour of Ferdinand Jakob Heinrich von Mueller (1825-96) who was the first government botanist of Victoria.

Distribution and habitat


  (cheese tree fruit)


The trees have specific growing conditions - they will only grow in conditions below -2 degrees Celsius, on open ground with little shade. They blossom once a year

The cheese tree grows in both clay and sandy soils, and is found in rainforest and wetter areas in sclerophyll forest, where it may be associated with such species as Bangalay (Eucalyptus botryoides), Woollybutt (E. longifolia), Forest Red Gum (E. tereticornis) Thin-leaved Stringybark (E. eugenioides) and swamp she-oak (Casuarina glauca).

The hairy cheese tree grows with magenta lilly pilly (Syzygium paniculatum),



    magenta lilly pilly (Syzygium paniculatum)


 broad-leaved paperbark (Melaleuca quinquenervia)


    paperbark (Melaleuca quinquenervia)


, and Rhodomyrtus species

  (Rhodomyrtus Flower)

  (Rhodomyrus Bush)


Species of cheese tree

(cheese tree fruit)

There are around 200 species of Glochidion and these were classed as Euphorbiceae, although they have now been moved to the Phyllanthaceae family, the plants of which typically have seed capsules which explode, ejecting the two flattened seeds in each of the capsules segments.

Horticultural Merit and uses:
Used in revegetation programs as a pioneer planting, useful small tree for gardens with a dense shady canopy or for providing a screen. May sucker if root zone is disturbed. Tolerates a wide range of soils as long as there is adequate moisture for growth. Quite hardy once established.

The Fruit 

(cheese tree fruit)

The fruit can be white, cream pale green, green, and orange to red, roundish, ribbed, resembling miniature Queensland Blue pumpkins (not really resembling cheeses).


Medicinal Uses Cancer

The Cheese Tree had a surprise for scientists though as they found two new xanthones in it and in the outer bark there is a “new” fungal metabolite Trichodermamide C which seems to have cytotoxicity actions on colorectal carcinomas and human lung carcinoma.

The bark is flaky and grey-brown, and the tree is fast-growing, with the cheeses starting off green then turning white-pink, changing to deep red when fully ripe.

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