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Beech(Fagus sylvatica)

Botanical Name: Fagus sylvatica
Family: Corylaceae (Fagaceae)
Kingdom: Plantae
Genus:     Fagus
Order:     Fagales
Synonyms: Buche. Buke. Boke. Bog. Bok. Buk. Hetre. Faggio. Faya. Haya. Fagos.
Part Used: The oil of the nuts.
Habitat: Europe, including Britain. (Indigenous only in England.) Armenia, Palestine, Asia Minor Tanan.
Beech grows on a wide range of soil types, acid or basic, provided they are not waterlogged. The tree canopy casts dense shade, and carpets the ground with dense leaf litter, and the ground flora beneath may be sparse.

The southern beeches Nothofagus previously thought closely related to beeches, are now treated as members of a separate family, Nothofagaceae. They are found in Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, New Caledonia and South America.

Description:Beech (Fagus) is a genus of ten species of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe and North America. Beech was a late entrant to Britain after the last glaciation, and may have been restricted to basic soils in the south of England. Today, beech is widely planted for hedging and in deciduous woodlands, and mature, regenerating stands occur throughout mainland Britain below about 650m. The leaves are entire or sparsely toothed, from 5-15 cm long and 4-10 cm broad. The flowers are small single-sex, wind-pollinated catkins, produced in spring shortly after the new leaves appear. The bark is smooth and light gray. The fruit is a small, sharply 3-angled nut 10-15 mm long, borne in pairs in soft-spined husks 1.5-2.5 cm long, known as cupules. The nuts are edible, though bitter with a high tannin content, and are called beechmast.

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.Uses:
The beech blight aphid (Grylloprociphilus imbricator) is a common pest of beech trees. Beeches are also used as food plants by some species of Lepidoptera .
The beech most commonly grown as an ornamental tree is the European Beech (Fagus sylvatica), widely cultivated in North America as well as its native Europe. Many varieties are in cultivation, notably the weeping beech F. sylvatica ‘Pendula’, several varieties of Copper or purple beech, the fern-leaved beech F. sylvatica ‘Asplenifolia’, and the tricolour beech F. sylvatica ‘roseomarginata’. The strikingly columnar Dawyck beech occurs in green, gold and purple forms, named after Dawyck Garden in the Scottish Borders, one of the four garden sites of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

The European species, Fagus sylvatica, yields a utility timber that is tough but dimensionally unstable. It is widely used for furniture framing and carcass construction, flooring and engineering purposes, in plywood and in household items like plates, but rarely as a decorative timber.

Chips of beech wood are used in the brewing of Budweiser beer as a fining agent. Beech logs are burned to dry the malts used in some German smoked beers, to give the beers their typical flavor.

Also, beech pulp is used as the basis for manufacturing a textile fibre known as Modal.

The fruit of the beech, also called “Beechnuts“, are found in the small burrs that drop from tree in Autumn. They are small and triangular, are edible, have a sweet taste and are highly nutritious. (~ 20% protein content). However, they do contain organic substances which are slightly TOXIC (it has been reported that eating approx. 50 nuts may make you ill) so that they should not be eaten in larger quantities.

Constituents: The wood ash of the Beech affords a large proportion of potash. The oil of the nuts occupies a position in the fixed oils between the vegetable non-drying and the true drying oils. Like the Cotton-seed oils, it forms more or less elaidin on treatment with nitrous acid or mercuric nitrate, but does not become wholly solidified. Beech tar is completely soluble in 95 per cent. acetic acid. Turpentine oil, chloroform and absolute ether do not entirely dissolve it. The petroleum ether is not coloured by copper acetate solution. Choline is present in the seeds.

Medicinal Uses:
The tar is stimulating and antiseptic, used internally as a stimulating expectorant in chronic bronchitis, or externally as an application in various skin diseases.

The oil is used in the same ways as the other fixed oils of its class.

Other Species:BEECH DROPS (OROBANCHE VIRGINIANA,EPIFAGUS VIRGINIANA, BROOM RAPE, CANCER ROOT), a parasite on Beech tree roots, has a bitter, nauseous, astringent taste, diminished by drying. It is given internally in bowel affections, and is reputed to cure cancer, though this is doubtful As a local application to wounds or ulcers it will arrest gangrene. It appears to act upon the capillary system like the tincture of muriate of iron.

ALBANY BEECH DROPS (Pterospora Andromeda) is a rare plant of North America valuable as a sedative diaphoretic in typhus, pleurisy and erysipelas

COPPER-BEECH (F. sylvatica var. purpurea). The leaves of this species may be used like those of the Red-leaved Hazel for the extraction of anthocyan pigment.

Disclaimer:
The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider.

Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beech
http://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/b/beech-27.html

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Banyan

Botanical Name: Ficus benghalensis
Family:    Moraceae
Genus:    Ficus
Species:F. benghalensis
Kingdom:Plantae
Order:Rosales

Common Names:  Indian banyan ‘Bengal fig’ and ‘Indian fig’. In Bengali it called Bot language, it is known as bat. In Tamil, it is known as aalamaram. In Telugu, it is known as marrichettu. Sanskrit names include nyagrodha and vata. In Kannada it is known as aalada mara. In Malayalam it is known as aalmaram or Peraal and in Punjabi It is known as “bodha”

Habitat :Banyan tree is native to  India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, but has been imported in other tropical regions. It is also the national tree of India. The first banyan tree in the U.S. was planted by Thomas Alva Edison in Fort Myers, Florida. It was given to Edison by Harvey Firestone after Firestone visited India in 1925 and was planted in the Edison and Ford Winter Estates. The tree, originally only 4 feet tall, now covers 400 feet.

Description:
Banyan tree is     a evergreen tree with spreading, often horizontal branches supported by prop roots. Bears elliptic to broadly ovate, leathery, deep green leaves, flushed bronze when young and with a distinct pattern of pale veins when mature. Spherical red figs are borne in pairs.It can grow 20 to 30m, the foilage color is dark green.

They are large trees that usually start life as a seedling growing on another tree (or on structures like buildings and bridges), where a fig-eating bird has deposited the seed. The roots descend over the trunk of the host, seeking out the soil below. Once they have rooted into this, the fig roots rapidly thicken and lignify (become wooden). Where the fig roots cross each other they fuse, thus creating a lattice around the host tree trunk. The fig competes with its host for light, water and nutrients, while its roots prevent the host trunk from growing. Eventually the host dies and rots away, leaving the fig self supporting as an ordinary tree, but with a tubular lattice of lignified roots instead of a trunk. For this reason banyans are often referred to as strangler figs.....click & see

Another unusual feature of the banyan is its ability to produce adventitious roots from the branches. This characteristic of developing aerial roots allows a single tree to spread over a large area. One famous banyan tree was planted in 1873 in Lahaina’s Courthouse Square in Hawai’i, and has grown to now cover two-thirds of an acre.

Like other members of this genus (which includes the common edible fig Ficus carica), banyans have a unique fruit and insect mediated fertilization process.

List of species:     The Indian Banyan (Ficus benghalensis) can grow into a giant tree covering several hectares. The Great Banyan in the Indian Botanic Garden, Howrah, is reckoned to be the largest tree in the world.

The Chinese Banyan (Ficus microcarpa), also known as the Malayan Banyan is native from Ceylon to India, southern China, the Malay Archipelago, the Ryukyu Islands, Australia, and New Caledonia.
The Central American Banyan (Ficus pertusa) is native to Central America and northern South America, from southern Mexico south to Paraguay.

Medicinal  Uses:

The banyan has many medical qualities. It is used in the traditional medicine for the treatment of several ailments.

Skin disorders: The banyan fruit exercises a soothing effect on the skin and mucous membrances and alleviates pain and swelling. It serves as a mild purgative too.

Arresting bleeding: The bark and the leaf bus of the banyan tree is very useful in preventing bleeding.

Diabetes: An infusion of the bark is a specific medicine for diabetes.

Vomiting: The tender ends of the aerial root can be taken in obstinate vomiting.

Dysentery & Chronic Diarhhoea: The leaf buds of the banyan tree are beneficial in thr treatment dysentery and chronic diarhhoea.

Luocorrhoea: A regular douching of genital tract with a decoction of the bark of the banyan tree and the fig tree is very helpful in lucorrhoea.

Rheumatic pain: The latex is commonly used locally for rheumatic pain and lumbago.A few drops of latex of the banyan tree mixed with milk is beneficial to cure bleeding piles.

Kibes – The cracking of heels : To deal with the problem it is useful to fill the cracks with the sap of banyan tree.

Female Sterility: Tender roots of banyan tree are considered beneficial in the treatment of female sterility.A hot polutice of the banyan leaves can be applied with beneficial to abscesses to promote suppuration and to hasten their breaking.

Warts: The milky juice from the fresh green banyan leaves is useful to destroy warts.

Ulcers: The latex of the banyan tree is commonly used locally for ulcers,bruises and sores.

Teeth Disorders: Cleaning the teeth with the arial roots of the banyan tree is beneficial in preventing teeth and gum disorders.

Leaves of banyan tree yield ficusin and bergaptene . Latex of the tree is very much toxic

Other Uses:
Banyan tree is the National tree of the Republic of India.It’s huge spreaded structures gives shade to birds & graging cattles,the fruit is eaten by birds & squirrels,leaves are eaten by goats & cows..

Known Hazards:  The foliage and milky sap of all figs can sometimes be an irritant to skin and eyes for especially sensitive people, but most people are not effected.

Disclaimer : The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplement, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider.

Resources:   Help taken from :en.wikipedia.org and book named miracles of herbs

http://mobile.floridata.com/Plants/Moraceae/Ficus%20benghalensis/802

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