Rimu
From Wikiwel
Other Names : Dacrydium cupressinum
Dacrydium cupressinum is an evergreen tree with a crown that is pyramidal when young, becoming round-topped with strong lateral branches as it matures; it can grow 20 - 35 metres tall, occasionally reaching 55 metres. The straight, cylindrical bole can be 150cm or more in diameter on mature trees.
Special Precautions of Rimu
Health Benefits and Uses of Rimu
- Māori used Rimu fruit as a food source, particularly in abundant mast years. The fruit only forms at the very end of branches, which made harvesting a dangerous task and serious injuries were common. The fruit has a constipating effect when eaten in large quantities and a juice made from Tutu flowers was drunk to counteract it.
- The gum is bitter but edible and was applied to wounds to stop bleeding. A decoction of the bark was used to treat wounds, and was also bruised into a pulp and applied to burns, cuts and ulcers.
- A resinous substance from the young branches has been used to make an alcoholic beverage resembling spruce beer. The resin is bitter but edible. In March 1773 (on his second voyage), Captain James Cook stopped in Dusky Sound to brew a beer he called a spruce beer, intended to combat scurvy, made from sugar (treacle or molasses) fermented with young rimu shoots (Salmon 1996). Such beers, made with young spruce (Picea) shoots, were commonly used for the purpose in England and the New World, due to the high vitamin C content of the young shoots
- The cones are rich in bioavailable calcium and vitamin D. The kakapo (Strigops habroptilus), a highly endangered parrot endemic to New Zealand (and the heaviest parrot in the world), has been found to breed successfully only during D. cupressinum mast years. The vitamin D is in the D3 form, formerly thought to be produced only by animals, more recently discovered to be produced by some plants in the Solanaceae; this is the first report of it being produced by a conifer (von Hurst et al. 2016)
