''Areca catechu'' is a species of palm native to the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

cultivated for areca nuts. It was carried widely through the tropics by the Austronesian migrations and

trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. Traders generally negotiate through a medium of cr ...

since at least 1500 BCE due to its use in betel nut chewing. It is widespread in cultivation and is considered naturalized in much of tropical Asia and in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

, southern China (

Guangxi Guangxi,; officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam (Hà Giang Province, Hà Giang, Cao Bằn ...

Hainan Hainan is an island provinces of China, province and the southernmost province of China. It consists of the eponymous Hainan Island and various smaller islands in the South China Sea under the province's administration. The name literally mean ...

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

, parts of the

Pacific Islands The Pacific islands are a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. They are further categorized into three major island groups: Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Depending on the context, the term ''Pacific Islands'' may refer to one of several ...

, and also in the

West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

. : : :This review cites this research. : : Its fruits (called areca nuts or betel nuts) are chewed together with

slaked lime Calcium hydroxide (traditionally called slaked lime) is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula Ca( OH)2. It is a colorless crystal or white powder and is produced when quicklime ( calcium oxide) is mixed with water. Annually, approxim ...

and betel leaves for their stimulant and narcotic effects.

Taxonomy

Common names in English include areca palm, areca nut palm, betel palm, betel nut palm, Indian nut, Pinang palm and catechu. This palm is commonly called the betel tree because its fruit, the areca nut, which are often chewed along with the betel leaf, a leaf from a vine of the family

Piperaceae The Piperaceae (), also known as the pepper family, are a large family (biology), family of flowering plants. The group contains roughly 3,600 currently accepted species in five genera. The vast majority of species can be found within the two mai ...

. The species was first published by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

in his book ''

Species Plantarum ' (Latin for "The Species of Plants") is a book by Carl Linnaeus, originally published in 1753, which lists every species of plant known at the time, classified into genus, genera. It is the first work to consistently apply binomial nomenclature ...

'' on page 1189 in 1753.

Description

''Areca catechu'' is a medium-sized palm

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

, growing straight to tall, with a trunk in diameter. The

leaves A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...

are long, pinnate, with numerous, crowded leaflets.

Chemical composition

The seed contains

alkaloid Alkaloids are a broad class of natural product, naturally occurring organic compounds that contain at least one nitrogen atom. Some synthetic compounds of similar structure may also be termed alkaloids. Alkaloids are produced by a large varie ...

s such as

arecaidine Arecaidine is a bio-active alkaloid in areca nuts. It is a competitive GABA reuptake inhibitor. Lime is said to hydrolyse arecoline to arecaidine References

{{GABA metabolism and transport modulators Piperidine alkaloids Beta-Amino acid ...

and

arecoline Arecoline is a cholinergic agent, stimulant, and natural product, naturally occurring alkaloid found in areca nut, areca (betel) nuts of the areca palm (''Areca catechu'') found in South Asia, South and Southeast Asia. Its effects, depending on ...

, which, when chewed, are intoxicating and slightly addictive. The seed also contains condensed tannins ( procyanidins) called arecatannins, which are carcinogenic. The antibacterial activity of the seed has been studied.

Uses

Betel nut chewing

''Areca catechu'' is grown for its commercially important seed crop, the areca nut, which is the main component of the practice of betel nut chewing. It is popular throughout

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

, the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

, parts of southern

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, and the

Maldives The Maldives, officially the Republic of Maldives, and historically known as the Maldive Islands, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in South Asia located in the Indian Ocean. The Maldives is southwest of Sri Lanka and India, abou ...

. The nut itself can be addictive and has direct link to oral cancers. Chewing areca nut is a cause of oral submucous fibrosis, a premalignant lesion which frequently progresses to mouth cancer. The practice of chewing areca nuts originated in Island Southeast Asia, where the areca palm is native. The oldest known evidence of areca nut chewing was found in a burial pit in the Duyong Cave site in the

(to which areca palms are native), which dates to around 4,630±250 BP. Its diffusion is closely tied to the

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

expansion of the

Austronesian peoples The Austronesian people, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples who have settled in Taiwan, maritime Southeast Asia, parts of mainland Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melan ...

. It was spread to the Indo-Pacific during prehistoric times, reaching Micronesia at 3,500 to 3,000 BP, Near Oceania at 3,400 to 3,000 BP; South India and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

by 3,500 BP; Mainland Southeast Asia by 3,000 to 2,500 BP;

Northern India North India is a geographical region, loosely defined as a cultural region comprising the northern part of India (or historically, the Indian subcontinent) wherein Indo-Aryans (speaking Indo-Aryan languages) form the prominent majority populati ...

by 1500 BP; and

by 600 BP. From India, it was also spread westwards to

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

and the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

. It was also previously present in the

Lapita culture The Lapita culture is the name given to a Neolithic Austronesian peoples, Austronesian people and their distinct material culture, who settled Island Melanesia via a seaborne migration at around 1600 to 500 BCE. The Lapita people are believed t ...

, based on archaeological remains dated from 3,600 to 2,500 BP, but it was not carried into

Polynesia Polynesia ( , ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in ...

Other uses

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 will not fruit or reach full size if grown in this way. Indoors, it is a slow-growing, low-water, high-light plant that is sensitive to spider mites and occasionally

mealybug Mealybugs are insects in the family Pseudococcidae, unarmored scale insects found in moist, warm habitats. Of the more than 2,000 described species, many are considered pests as they feed on plant juices of greenhouse plants, house plants and ...

s. In India, the dried fallen leaves are collected and hot-pressed into disposable palm leaf plates and bowls.Palm Leaf Plates
on the website TheWholeLeafCo.dom; viewed in September 2016

Cultural significance

In Indonesia and Malaysia there are numerous place names using the words ''pinang'', ''jambi'' or ''jambe'' (areca in Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese, and Old Malay). For example, the cities of Tanjung Pinang, Pangkal Pinang in Indonesia, the Indonesian province of Jambi and Penang Island (''Pulau Pinang'') off the west coast of

Peninsular Malaysia Peninsular Malaysia, historically known as Malaya and also known as West Malaysia or the Malaysian Peninsula, is the western part of Malaysia that comprises the southern part of the Malay Peninsula on Mainland Southeast Asia and the list of isla ...

. Fua Mulaku in the Maldives,

Guwahati Guwahati () the largest city of the Indian state of Assam, and also the largest metropolis in northeastern India. Dispur, the capital of Assam, is in the circuit city region located within Guwahati and is the seat of the Government of Assam. Th ...

Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...

, Supari (সুপারি) in

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

and coastal areas of

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

and

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

in India, are also some of the places named after a local name for areca nut.

Gallery

File:Areca Nuts Palm Balamuri Coorg Feb24 A7C 09503.jpg, Areca palm trunk with nuts File:Buds of Areca catechu.jpg, New buds of ''Areca catechu'' File:Young Areca Catechu Balamuri Coorg Feb24 R16 07669.jpg, Areca sapling, Coorg, India Image:Areca_catechu_Forest.JPG, An ''Areca catechu'' plantation in Taiwan Image:Areca catechu nuts at Kadavoor.jpg, Areca palm fruit at

, India File:BuahPinangMuda.jpg, Young "betel" nuts in Malaysia File:সুপারি.jpg, Areca catechu of Bangladesh File:Hat palathoppi.jpg, Hat palathoppi (Outer view) made of the leaf of Areca catechu in Kerala File:Hat palathoppi kerala.jpg, Hat_ palathoppi (inner view) made of the leaf of Areca catechu in Kerala Old Bagan, Myanmar, Paan, the betel leaf and areca nut.jpg, Areca nut in Paan preparation, Myanmar File:Arecanut plantation.jpg, Arecanut plantation near Harapanahalli,

References

External links

Plant Cultures: Betelnut botany and history

''Areca catechu'' List of Chemicals (Dr. Duke's)

{{Taxonbar, from=Q156969 catechu Fruits originating in Asia Flora of the Philippines Medicinal plants of Asia Garden plants of Asia House plants Ornamental trees Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Herbal and fungal stimulants Fruit trees IARC Group 1 carcinogens Flora of the Maldives Euphoriants Austronesian agriculture