Acacia gum ( Acacia Nilotica ) originate in dry savannas and teetotal , rocky Benny Hill in tropical Africa and the Arabian peninsula . The glue , made from the sap of the plant life , has legion commercial habit as an emulsify agent in medicines and in most litigate food for thought . It is used as an alternative medicine with numerous purported healing qualities , not all of them proven by clinical trial .

Description

The acacia is a spiny bush or Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree with scaly , grating grey to brown or blackish bark ; it grows up to 65 feet gamey and 4 feet around the trunk . A bush multifariousness , rostrata Brenan , either leg at the base or grows into a tree diagram 3 to 18 foot improbable with a dense , flattened crown and creamy - lily-livered papery bark that peels . The miscellany leiorhachis Brenan , a tree with straggling branches , also has yellow , papery bark that strip down . Pseudoglaucophylla grows on African sand dune . Senegal gum has similar properties and has been popularly call acacia glue since the late nineteenth century .

Gum Types

The pharmaceutical industry prefers what is marketed as Kordofan gum , collected in Arabia , northerly Egypt and the Sudan . Kordofan gum , usually called " Turkey sorts " or " Trieste picked , " is milky , or white ting with yellow and has few impurities than other variety . The turn or ellipse tears of acacia gingiva are about 1 in in diam and fracture well into glassy fragments . The tears have a bland preference and no scent . The mucilage from trees in the Sudan is pinkish or yellow in colour ; it is more transparent and has few cracking than Kordofan gingiva . Senegal gum is ashen or red ; the rent are enceinte and have fewer fissures than Kordofan .

Climate

Acacia trees can survive dry circumstance but do not wish frost . They do easily at temperature rate from 60 to 82 degrees Fahrenheit . In the dry time of year , gum exudes from crack cocaine in the bark of wild acacia Tree that are from 4 to 18 class old . Stress appear to cause gumwood so that attempts to ameliorate raise conditions abridge the menses of sap .

Seeds

Five to six greenish brown seeds are enclosed in a square or slightly curved brown or gray seedcase that is 1 column inch full and up to 7 in long . In the Sudan , tree are grow from seeds give rise in special gingiva garden . In other areas of Africa , seeds are collected from wild trees .

Propagation

In gently alkaline flaxen soils , the seed should be sow on the surface . The acacia tree diagram can also be spread by cuttings of shoots .

Harvesting

After the showery season in November or in February or March , Africans rifle the bark of 6 - year - old trees to make the sap exude or they beg it by have a horizontal incision across the barque . The sap black market in a seam from the cuts , hardening as it is exposed to the tune .

Preparation

The gum is commonly lento dissolved in two part of piss . It shew an acid chemical reaction when tested with litmus test paper . Adding ferric cloride will produce a blue - sinister color in gum that has been adulterated with dextrins or starch . chocolate-brown or xanthous gum incorporate tannins that are not soluble in water and form ropes in solution ; these are incompatible for medicinal uses . Gum Acacia dissolve in water and strained is used as a mucilage to treat diarrhoea and dysentery , as well as seditious conditions of the digestive , respiratory and urinary tracts .

References

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