Interesting facts

The carnauba palm was given the scientific name Copernicia in honour of the famous astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543). The epithet prunifera is made up of the Latin prunum = plum and -fer = bearing, and describes the fruits of the palm. In its native Brazil the carnauba palm is also called carnaúbeira. About 300 years ago in the North East of Brazil Spanish Jesuits learned the diverse uses of the carnauba palm from the indigenous Tremembé Indians, who knew the palm as the Tree of Wisdom. Preparations from its roots combat inflammation. The cherry-sized fruits make good animal feed and, when boiled and ground, can be used as a kind of coffee substitute. The shoots make a tasty soup, the pith provides a starchy flour and palm syrup can be made from the sap - this in turn can be made into a kind of wine or vinegar. The hard wood makes a durable building material and high-quality veneer, the leaf fibres can be made into ropes, mats and hats and the fronds into roof coverings and hammocks. The wax is the only produce of the palm that has achieved economic significance. To obtain the wax the young, cut fronds of the carnauba palm are dried. During the drying process the leaf shrinks and the wax flakes can then be threshed or scraped from the leaves. The yield is relatively small, however. One leaf produces two grams of wax. Each tree yields 160 grams of wax per year. The first load of wax was shipped to Europe in 1824 on the initiative of the Englishman James Frederick Clark. Until the outbreak of the Second World War the export of carnauba wax to Europe played an important economic role in many areas of Brazil. Then synthetic substitutes ousted carnauba wax from the market and this export sector collapsed.