Author:
Jan Scholten
Book:
Qjurious
Type:
Info
Chapter:
3-622.54.__
Dicypellium caryophyllaceum
English: Clove Bark.
Region: south America, northern Brazil.
Habitat: non-flooded rainforest.
Cultural: rare due to use of the bark to make essential oils.
Content: curare; aromatic essential oil, a resin, gum and tannins.
Use: medicinal; fruits for food flavouring, as cinnamon, to which it has a similar flavour; distilled flower buds yield an essential oil rich in eugenol for vanilla flavouring; leaves for substitute for China tea; bark is very aromatic, peppery; for a black dye, for colouring cotton cloth; pale yellow wood is very aromatic, close-grained, strong: wood for timber, naval constructions, fellies and rims of waterwheels, cabinet making, general carpentry, floorboards.
Botany
Elegant, dioecious, evergreen tree, up to 20 metres tall.
The bark has a hot, clove-like, peppery taste[460