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ARECA CATECHU - BETEL NUT PALM.

 

Common name
Betel nut palm, pinang, bing lang, areca nut, bunga.

 

Family
Arecaceae (Palmae)

 

Description

Areca catechu is grown for its economically important seed crop, the Betel nut. The seed contains alkaloids such as arecaine and arecoline, which when chewed is intoxicating and is also slightly addictive. Areca palms are grown in India, Malaysia, Taiwan and many other Asian countries for their seeds.

 

Penang Island, off the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, is named after pinang, a local name for betel nut.

 

The Areca palm is also used as an interior landscaping species. It is often used in large indoor areas such as malls and hotels. It won't fruit or reach full size. Indoors it is a slow growing, low water, high light plant that is sensitive to spider mite and occasionally mealy bug.


The Areca Palm grows about 60 feet tall, the trunk diameter tends to be between 8 12 inches. 

The trunk is solitary, slender and erect.

 

The leaf can be up to 7’ long with broad leaflets and the tips becoming jagged.

 

The flower is white in color with a sweet scent, starting from below the crown shaft on a branching spadix.

 

The fruits are orange-yellow once ripened about 2.5 inches long.

 

 Areca catechu is grown for the important seed crop, the Betel nut.


The nut itself is brown, oval and flattened at one end.


The fruit flesh on the seed has psychoactive properties (stimulating effects) and in South-east

Asiais used as such by chewing on the fruit.


It produces euphoria, heightened alertness, sweating, salivation, a hot sensation in the body and an increased capacity to work.


The alkaloid arecoline found in the nut, accounts for these effects.


However there may be undesirable side effects associated with chewing on the fruit such as an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, and sweating and body temperature.


Betel chewing also increases plasma concentrations of nor epinephrine and epinephrine.
The Betelnut is also used as an offering in Hinduism.

 

The seeds are cut into narrow pieces and rolled inside Betel Pepper leaf, rubbed over with lime and chewed by the natives. They stain the lips and teeth red and also the excrement, they are hot and acrid when chewed.

 

Cold Hardiness: 

Cold sensitive, for tropical areas. Doesn't tolerate cold weather; does poorly at low 30ºs, F., severe cold damage.  However it does great indoors since it is medium growing can be kept indoor many, many years. It is a very gorgeous palm in the appropriate environment. 

Medicinal uses

Areca Nut contains a large quantity of tannin, also Gallic acid, a fixed oil gum, a little volatile oil, lignin, and various saline substances. Four alkaloids have been found in Areca Nut - Arecoline, Arecain, Guracine, and a fourth existing in very small quantity. Arecoline resembles Pilocarpine in its effects on the system. Arecaine is the active principle of the Areca Nut.


In Ayurvedic medicine, the nut is used in the treatment of headaches, fever and rheumatism.
In China, betelnut is used to treat parasitic infection.


Arecoline resembles Pilocarpine and Muscarine in its effect; other alkaloids in betel nut are arecaine, guvacoline and guvacine. Arecanut also contains phenolic compounds (mainly hydroxychavicol and saffrole12), tannin, resin, choline and catechu.

Areca Nut is aromatic and astringent and is said to intoxicate when first taken. The natives chew these nuts all day. Whole shiploads are exported annually from Sumatra, Malacca, Siam and Cochin China. In this country Areca Nut is made into a dentrifrice on account of its astringent properties. Catechu is often made by boiling down the seeds of the plant to the consistency of an extract, but the proper Catechu used in Britain is produced from the Acacia catechu. The flowers are very sweet-scented and in Borneo are used in medicines as charms for the healing of the sick. In India the nut has long been used as a taenifuge for tapeworm. The action of Arecain resembles that of Muscarine and Pilocarpine externally, internally used it contracts the pupils.

The Fruit is known to have a psychotropic effect on people.

 

Other Species

In Malabar Areca Dicksoni is found growing wild and is used by the poor as a substitute for the true Betel Nut (A. aleraceae). The Cabbage Palm, which grows profusely in the West Indies, derives its name from the bud topping the tall stem; this consists of leaves wrapped round each other as in the cabbage, the heart of which is white inside. It has a delicate taste and is cut and cooked as a vegetable, many of these beautiful palms being destroyed in this way. It is said that in the empty cavity a beetle lays its eggs. These turn into maggots which are eaten with great relish by the people of Guiana. In the USA the Christmas Palm is often sold as Betelnut, however it does not have the medicinal effects the Areca contains and grows up quite different then the Areca.