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Currently, rubber is harvested mainly in the form of the latex from the Pará rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) or others. The latex is a sticky, milky and white colloid drawn off by making incisions in the bark and collecting the fluid in vessels in a process called "tapping".
Rubber tapping in Indonesia, 1951. Rubber tapping is the process by which latex is collected from a rubber tree.The latex is harvested by slicing a groove into the bark of the tree at a depth of one-quarter inch (6.4 mm) with a hooked knife and peeling back the bark.
The rubber tree takes between seven and ten years to deliver the first harvest. [6] Harvesters make incisions across the latex vessels, just deep enough to tap the vessels without harming the tree's growth, and the latex is collected in small buckets. This process is known as rubber tapping. Latex production is highly variable from tree to tree ...
A white liquid called latex is extracted from the stem of the rubber tree, and contains rubber particles dispersed in an aqueous serum. [2] The rubber, which constitutes about 35% of the latex, is chemically cis-1,4-polyisoprene ((C 5 H 8) n). Latex is practically a neutral substance, with a pH of 7.0 to 7.2. However, when it is exposed to the ...
This latex was formerly used to make rubber, [2] but it should not be confused with the Pará rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis), the sap of which is the main commercial source of latex for rubber making. The latex of Ficus elastica has been tested for use in the manufacture of rubber, but without economic and technical results. [citation needed]
A milky latex is a characteristic of the subfamilies Euphorbioideae and Crotonoideae, and the latex of the rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis is the primary source of natural rubber. The latex is poisonous in the Euphorbioideae, but innocuous in the Crotonoideae. [citation needed] White mangrove, also known as blind-your-eye mangrove latex ...
Hevea brasiliensis (Willd. ex A.Juss.) Müll.Arg. – Pará rubber tree – Brazil, French Guiana, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia; naturalized in parts of Asia and Africa and on some tropical islands; Hevea camargoana Pires – Marajó, Pará State in Brazil; Hevea camporum Ducke – Amazonas State in Brazil; Hevea guianensis Aubl.
The seeds are poisonous when raw but can be eaten when well-boiled. Some native tribes consume them regularly, but others regard them as famine food only to be eaten at times of food scarcity. Tapping the tree gives a thin latex that has the undesirable quality of preventing coagulation when mixed with the latex from other rubber tree species. [1]