Resumo de Mango The King Of Fruits

MANGO : THE KING OF FRUITS

Due to its superb, juicy, tasty and very colorful
fruit, Mango is known as the 'King of fruits'. Called
Am or Aaam in Hindi, Aamrum in Sanskrit, Mango in
English and Spanish, manja in Dutch, it has a great
variety in species, forms, size, color, scent, taste
and quality. There are over 500 named varieties of the
mango. The colorful, tasty, juicy, flavored fruit is
known all over the world. Within each fruit there is a
large flat elongated fib.
The mango exists in two races, one from India and the
other from the Philippines and Southeast Asia. The
Indian race is intolerant of humidity, has flushes of
bright red new growth that are subject to mildew, and
bears monoembryonic fruit of high color and regular
form. The Philippine race tolerates excess moisture,
has pale green or red new growth and resists mildew.
Its polyembryonic fruit is pale green and elongated
kidney-shaped. Philippines types from Mexico have
proven to be the hardiest mangos in California.
Famous Indian Varieties are Dussheri, Chosa, Langra,
Safeda, Kalmi, Alphonso, Amrapali and Langda.
The flesh of a mango is peachlike and juicy, with more
or less numerous fibers radiating from the husk of the
single large kidney-shaped seed. Fibers are more
pronounced in fruits grown with hard water and
chemical fertilizers. The flavor is pleasant and rich
and high in sugars and acid. The seed may either have
a single embryo, producing one seedling, or
polyembryonic, producing several seedlings that are
identical but not always true to the parent type. It
is impossible to distinguish true-to-type from zygotic
seedlings from the same fruit. Some seedlings produce
numerous tiny, parthenocarpic fruits which fail to
develop and abort. Mango trees tend to be alternate
bearing.
The leaves contain the glucoside, mangiferine. In
India, cows were formerly fed mango leaves to obtain
from their urine euxanthic acid which is rich yellow
and has been used as a dye. Since continuous intake of
the leaves may be fatal, the practice has been
outlawed.

When mango trees are in bloom, it is not uncommon for
people to suffer itching around the eyes, facial
swelling and respiratory difficulty, even though there
is no airborne pollen. The few pollen grains are large
and they tend to adhere to each other even in dry
weather. The stigma is small and not designed to catch
windborne pollen. The irritant is probably the
vaporized essential oil of the flowers which contains
the sesquiterpene alcohol, mangiferol, and the ketone,
mangiferone.
Dried mango flowers, containing 15% tannin, serve as
astringents in cases of diarrhea, chronic dysentery,
catarrh of the bladder and chronic urethritis
resulting from gonorrhea. The bark contains
mangiferine and is astringent and employed against
rheumatism and diphtheria in India. The resinous gum
from the trunk is applied on cracks in the skin of the
feet and on scabies, and is believed helpful in cases
of syphilis.
Mango kernel decoction and powder (not tannin-free)
are used as vermifuges and as astringents in diarrhea,
hemorrhages and bleeding hemorrhoids. The fat is
administered in cases of stomatitis. Extracts of
unripe fruits and of bark, stems and leaves have shown
antibiotic activity. In some of the islands of the
Caribbean, the leaf decoction is taken as a remedy for
diarrhea, fever, chest complaints, diabetes,
hypertension and other ills. A combined decoction of
mango and other leaves is taken after childbirth."

Authored By:
Ravindra Nath Srivastava,
2/413, Vivek Khand, Gomtinagar,
Uttar Pradesh, India
Phone: 91 522 5536507

Resumos Relacionados