Mauritia flexuosa

Distribution

Mauritia flexuosa is found in the wild in South America in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad, and Venezuela.

Fruit

The fruit, which is an orange-brown and covered with neat rows of scales, are consumed by catfish during the annual floods and then deposited sometimes at a considerable distance from the mother plant. When the waters reside, the seeds germinate.

Moriche palm fruit ("morete" in the Oriente of Ecuador) is edible and used to make juice, jam, ice cream, a fermented "wine", desserts and snacks, requiring harvesting of more than 50 tonnes per day in Peru.

The inflorescence buds are eaten as a vegetable and the sap can be drunk fresh or fermented (see palm wine). Threads and cords are locally produced from the tree's fibers.

Humans consume palm weevil larvae (Rhynchophorus palmarum) which burrow in the tree trunk.

Oil

Buriti oil is an orange-reddish oil extracted from the fruit of the moriche palm. The oil contains high concentrations of oleic acid, tocopherols, and carotenoids, especially beta-carotene. The oil has a reddish color used as ink on hides and skins. Batana oil, a similar oil extract, has seen hair and skin care use since indigenous times.

Ecology

This tree is important to many animal species; several bird species, such as the red-bellied macaw, sulphury flycatcher, and moriche oriole, use it for nesting and food. Tapirs, peccaries, fish and monkeys depend on the fruit.

Alexander von Humboldt documented the tree and the ecosystem it supports in 1800 when traveling through the Llanos region of Venezuela. He "observed with astonishment how many things are connected with the existence of a single plant." He called it the "tree of life" and essentially described it as a keystone species although the concept would not be explicitly defined until 1969 by Robert T. Paine.

Miscellaneous

The government of the Federal District – the Brazilian state where the country's capital, Brasília, is located – is called Palácio do Buriti ("Buriti Palace"). Across the street from the building is a square with fountains and a single moriche palm tree, which was taken from the outskirts of the city and replanted there. The species is a common feature of the cerrado vegetation that predominates in central Brazil.

References

References

1. "Mauritia flexuosa L.f. — the Plant List".
2. "World Checklist of Selected Plant Families: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew".
3. Henderson, Andrew. (1995). "Palms of the Amazon". Oxford Univ. Press.
4. J. Francis McBride, Palmae, FLORA OF PERU volume 13 part 1 issue 2 page 327
5. J. Francis McBride, "Palmae", FLORA OF PERU, loc.cit.
6. David L. Jones, PALMS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, Smithsonian Institution Press, (1995) page 72.
7. Francis Kahn. "Ecology of Economically Important Palms in Peruvian Amazonia".
8. Bright, Michael. (2001). "1000 Wonders of Nature". Reader's Digest Association Ltd.
9. (2006). "Absorption and photoluminescence of Buriti oil/polystyrene and Buriti oil/poly(methyl methacrylate) blends". [[European Polymer Journal]].
10. PESCE, Celestino. Oleaginosas da Amazonia.-Belém: Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi, 2009. 334 p.: il. {{ISBN. 978-85-61377-06-9 (MPEG) e 978-85-60548-39-2 (MDA)
11. (2023-11-06). "How Is Batana Oil Made?".
12. https://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/drugInfo.cfm?setid=252fec30-7583-ab0d-e063-6294a90a0ee9
13. "Batana Oil: Benefits, Side Effects, Skin Care, and More".
14. (2006). "The amazing palm tree of the Amazon". Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana.
15. (2015). "The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World: Andrea Wulf: 9780385350662: Amazon.com: Books".