Eucommia
From Freepedia
| Eucommia Conservation status: Extinct in the wild | ||||||||||||||
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| Eucommia ulmoides Oliv. |
Eucommia (Eucommia ulmoides) is a small tree native to China. It is extinct in the wild, but is widely cultivated in China for its bark, highly valued in herbology (traditional Chinese medicine). It is the sole member of the family Eucommiaceae, and was formerly considered to be a separate order, the Eucommiales.
Eucommia grows to about 15 m tall. The leaves are deciduous, arranged alternately, simple ovate with an acuminate tip, 8–16 cm long, and with a serrated margin. If a leaf is torn across, strands of latex exuded from the leaf veins solidify into rubber and hold the two parts of the leaf together. The flowers are inconspicuous, small and greenish; the fruit is a winged samara with one seed, very similar to an elm samara in appearance, 2–3 cm long and 1–2 cm broad.
Eucommia is also occasionally planted in botanical gardens and other gardens in Europe, North America and elsewhere, being of interest as the only cold-tolerant (to at least -30°C) rubber-producing tree.
It is also sometimes known as "Gutta-percha tree" or "Chinese rubber tree", but is not related to either the true Gutta-percha tree of southeast Asia, nor to the South American rubber tree.
Fossils of Eucommia have been found in 10–35 million year old brown coal deposits in central Europe and widely in North America (Call & Dilcher 1997), indicating that the genus had a much wider range in the past.
External links
Call, V.B. and Dilcher, D.L. 1997. The fossil record of Eucommia (Eucommiaceae) in North America. American Journal of Botany 84(6): 798-814. Available online (pdf file)
