One of the wonderful plants that mother nature has filled our earth with is the Hevea tree. What is it special about, what kind of application did people come up with for him, and what does it look like? Let's figure it out.
Appearance and features of the plant
Hevea (rubber tree) is a tropical plant found in Indonesia, Malaysia and South America. It is special in that when an incision is made in the bark, a milky-white juice comes out, which resembles the juice of a milkweed or dandelion that is familiar to everyone. The frozen mass was used by the Indians for the manufacture of various household items, including balls for ritual games.
The Hevea tree itself belongs to the genus of mahogany, therefore it is distinguished by its unusual strength and hardness, which is also easy to process. Products from it are resistant to decay, therefore they are very durable and beautiful. But the main value of this evergreen plant up to fifty meters high is its juice.
Rubber milk
That is what the inhabitants of the tropics call the juice that the hevea plant gives. Latex (the same juice scientifically) is not obtained from every tree. First of all, it should reach the age of ten to twelve years. And to determine the age of a hevea only its growth and trunk diameter helps, since it does not have rings on the cut and texture. “Adult” can be considered a plant with a height of 24 meters and a diameter of 75 centimeters. Rubber can be obtained from one tree for up to thirty years, after which it is cut down and replaced with a young plant. But they do not plant hevea on purpose: in a moist and warm environment, its large seeds, resembling chestnuts, sprout themselves. Therefore, workers are even forced to thin out thickets of young plants so that they do not turn into impenetrable jungle.
It is worth paying attention that latex is extracted not only from hevea. The thick juice of some varieties of ficus has similar properties, but still the Brazilian plant is the most productive, and the rubber from it has a higher quality. That is why the hevea tree has flooded all world plantations.
How is rubber collected?
Juice, which is extracted from hevea, contains, in addition to rubber, water, proteins, resins, ash and sugar. Therefore, after collection, the liquid is cleaned and "squeezed out" of water. This is the so-called raw rubber, which later turns into a material for various rubber products.
Every morning, the hevea tree undergoes such an operation: an incision is made on the trunk with a special knife, deep and inclined. Underneath are attached containers for collecting milk juice - clay or porcelain cups of small size. For a day, one plant can collect about two hundred grams of juice. After lunch, the worker bypasses the rubber plantation and pours all the contents into a can. And then the “crop” is sent to the plant for further processing.
Hevea juice at the plant
What next do with the juice collected from an unusual tree? It is filtered, acetic acid is added and poured into large baking sheets. There, the mass condenses and solidifies. Then these white panels are rolled through patterned iron rolls and dried. The final stage is smoking, due to which the rubber acquires a translucent color and protection against voracious ants.
Single tree life
It is worth noting that the old rubber tree looks very bad. After all, every day for fifteen to twenty years they are mutilated by incisions. This peel covers the entire trunk from the base to human growth (it is inconvenient to collect the juice above). Each new groove is made lower than the previous one on a whole plot of bark, and when one side of the tree is covered with notches, then they switch to the other. When there is not a single untouched place left, the worker again returns to the front of the barrel and cuts the “wounds” that are scarred. In total, for the life of one hevea, about ten thousand cuts are applied to her body, from which up to two tons of rubber are collected.
It is worth noting that the maintenance of rubber plantations is a very profitable business. On the world market, a ton of raw material costs about six hundred dollars, and one tree can produce juice for 40-50 dollars per year, without requiring special costs. That is why in the Malay archipelago on every free piece of land it is hevea that grows. The tree, the photo of which is presented in this article, is considered a gift of the gods here, and it is an important part of the economies of the countries.
