Ocotea catharinensis
| Ocotea catharinensis | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Magnoliids |
| Order: | Laurales |
| Family: | Lauraceae |
| Genus: | Ocotea |
| Species: | O. catharinensis |
| Binomial name | |
|
Ocotea catharinensis Mez. |
|
Ocotea catharinensis is a member of the plant family Lauraceae. It is a slow-growing evergreen, a valuable hardwood tree of broad ecological importance, and it is threatened by habitat loss and by overexploitation for its timber and essential oils.
Ocotea catharinensis is a slow-growing monoecious evergreen hardwood up to 40m tall. Its flowers are small and hermaphrodite. The ovary is glabrous with a well developed ovule. Often not all the locelli are fertile.
Ocotea catharinensis is a dominant canopy tree of the South American tropical rainforest. It grows on deep, rich, well-drained soils on slopes between 30 and 900m above sea level. It is a honey-bearing tree and its fruits are eaten by birds and mammals, including the endangered monkey Brachyteles arachnoides.
The tree is badly overexploited for its valuable hardwood, its essential oils with their (linalool) content, and for various pharmaceutical compounds or prospects such as neolignans. From the early- to mid-20th century the wood was popular for the flooring of houses in the Brazilian coastal State of Santa Catarina. In 1997 it appeared in the IUCN Red List as Vulnerable Since then it has been described as "on the verge of extinction" and research is being published on prospects for its somatic propagation.
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Wikipedia