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Elemi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Canarium luzonicum (Blume) A.Gray |
Elemi (Canarium luzonicum) is a tree native to the Philippine Islands, and an oleo-resin harvested from it.
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Elemi resin is a pale yellow substance, of honey-like consistency. Aromatic elemi oil is steam distilled from the resin. It is a fragrant resin with the smell of fennel. One of the resin components is called amyrin.
Elemi is chiefly used commercially in varnishes and lacquers, and certain printing inks.
Elemi is used as a herbal medicine to treat bronchitis, catarrh, extreme coughing, mature skin, scars, stress, and wounds. The constituents include phellandrene, dipentene, elemol, elemicin, terpineol, carvone, and terpinolene. It is a possible carcinogen, but research is incomplete.[citation needed]
The word elemi has been used at various times to denote different resins. In the 17th and 18th centuries the term usually denoted a resin from trees of the genus Icica in Brazil, and before that it meant the resin derived from Boswellia Frereana. The word, like the older term animi appears to have been derived from enhaemon (εναιμον): the name of a styptic medicine said by Pliny to contain tears exuded by the olive tree of Arabia.[1]
- World Conservation Monitoring Centre (1998). Canarium luzonicum. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Listed as Vulnerable (VU A1cd v2.3)
- J. Lawless, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Essential Oils (Rockport, MA: Element Books, 1995), 59-67.
- R. Tisserand, Essential Oil Safety (United Kingdom: Churchill Livingstone, 1995), 135.
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition
