Aleurites (redirected from Aleurites javanica)

Aleurites 

a genus of deciduous trees of the family Euphor-biaceae. The alternate leaves are entire or three- to five-lobed. The flowers are unisexual and have a five-petaled corolla. The fruit is drupaceous and reaches 6 cm in diameter. The seeds are large, measuring 2–3 cm in length, and, in most species, are poisonous. There are five species (according to other data, as many as 15), found on Pacific islands and in tropical and subtropical regions of South and East Asia. The seeds contain a large quantity of rapidly drying high-quality oil. The best tung oil is obtained from seeds of the tung tree A. fordii, which is native to China and cultivated in many warm countries. Valuable industrial oils are also obtained from the species A. montana, A. moluccana, A. cordata, and A. trisperma. A. fordii and A. cordata are cultivated in the USSR, in Transcaucasia.

REFERENCES

Siniagin, 1.1. Tropicheskoe zemledelie. Moscow, 1968.
Zhukovskii, P. M. Kul’turnye rasteniia i ikh sorodichi, 3rd ed. Leningrad, 1971.
Mudzhiri, I. P. Kul’tura tunga i kompleksnoe ispol’zovanie egoplodov. Tbilisi, 1973.

V. N. GLADKOVA