Sandalwood - A Rare Gift Of Nature
Sandalwood is a very popular as an effective antiseptic. It has various medicinal properties. It is an excellent remedy on dry and rough skin. The sandalwood products are very fruitful on oily skin, pimples, diarrhea, insomnia, depression and stress related problems. The sandalwood is also used in preparation of germicides. It is also prominently and widely used in soaps, detergents, cosmetics, perfumes, aftershaves and fragrance sticks. The sandalwood fruit can be eaten raw. Also the leaves are eaten by animals. The sandalwood is very strong and durable. The woods obtained from the stem is used for making excellent art form. The skin of sandalwood 12 to 14 tannin and hence skin has large demand in tannin business. The seeds of sandalwood are used in color formation. The most expensive sandalwood oil is extracted from the middle part of stem.
According to scientist sandalwood is in-toxic, anti-acidic and cool in nature. Hence sandalwood is used in every society of the world. The lovers of sweet smell of sandalwood are found all over the world. Many popular cosmetology components deliberately use sandalwood in their products. The companies preparing products for sensitive skin also used sandalwood in their creams and ointments. It requires complete 30 years for full fledged growth of sandalwood. But those who are indulged in sandalwood smuggling does not allow the complete growth of sandalwood tree and cut the tree before it attains its total growth. The excellent quality of sandalwood oil can be obtained from the tree aged 50-60 years. But a sandalwood thief is not willing to wait for such long years because he needs instant money thus depriving others from the useful sandalwood products. They cut the tender sandalwood plants for achieving money thus pushing these species towards extinction. The increased theft of sandalwood has questioned the identity of priceless Santalum. Its identification is provoking as the only medium of earning money in black market. The reason is that the sandalwood tree is useful in both live and dead condition.
The Mysore city of Karnataka is recognized as the sandalwood city . The sultan of Mysore in 1972 has crowned the sandalwood tree as the royal tree. Even today, the people of Mysore city has tremendous respect for sandalwood. It is one of the basic means of achieving their basic needs. There is a law about sandalwood in Mysore, that if a sandal tree has grown in the field of a farmer then it will not belong to the farmer rather it will be prevented as a government property. The farmer is not permitted to cut the tree until it has completely developed.
Nowadays the demand of sandalwood has increased profusely. The countries like Australia and Thailand are planting new sandalwood species in order to fulfill the demand of sandalwood. But such medicinally important mighty sandalwood trees were earlier found only in India.
The naturally grown sandalwood trees can be seen in Middle and North India. Although Sandalwood is a very powerful genetic material but if the tiny plants of sandalwood are not prevented from wild animals, then it causes adverse effect on its genetic growth. The sandalwood plants are very sensitive to scorching heat of summer and gets dried quickly. To obtain proper growth of sandalwood plants, they should be planted at a distance of 3/3 meter to 5/5 meter and should be prevented from fire. The height of Australian sandalwood tree is 4 meters, but in India, this tree can grow up to 20 meters. A 30 years old sandalwood tree grows to a height of 15 c.m and approximately 50 kg of wood can be obtained from it. A small seed of sandalwood planted in soil shows miracles in 30 years. The preservation of these seeds is done in a traditional way. The growing capacity of the sandalwood seeds is only two years, because the growth capacity decreases in room temperature. The spike disease decreases the size of the leaves resulting in obstacles in vascular functions finally decreasing the period of germination. Some plants thus dies at a very initial stage.
Fragrance is the basic chemistry of sandalwood. But along with this, it is also useful in many ways. Hence it is one of the favorite tree of the common people. But nowadays the evil cutting and selling of sandalwood on large scale and this has created a question mark on the identity of sandalwood.
Source: Wikipedia
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