The pulpy center of the
fruits is edible and contains starch. The fruit is sold in local markets in the Americas. The leaves may be used to make a
tea. The trees produce a dense
wood used for
timber in making ships and furniture. The thick bark of some species is used by
indigenous peoples of the Amazon to make
canoes. Seeds contain large amounts (40% of dry weight) of a highly viscous polysaccharide (
xyloglucan) which can be used in several industrial sectors such as food, paper, cosmetic and pharmaceutical. The trees also make hard
resins that are used to manufacture varnish, especially the resin from
Hymenaea courbaril (jatobá) in Brazil. The resin that is produced in Brazil is known as
South American
copal, and
Hymenaea verrucosa is the source of the valuable
Zanzibar copal. Resin may be collected from living trees, or from the soil near the place where a tree once stood. Throughout its American range, indigenous peoples use the resin for
incense and as a cement. Resin from the extinct species
Hymenaea protera is the source of
Dominican amber, while the extinct
Hymenaea mexicana produced the resin which is the source of Mexican amber.
Hymenaea courbaril has been used as a
model organism to study the effect of increased concentration on the rate of
photosynthesis in
neotropical regions. When the concentration of was increased from an ambient reference level of 360
ppm to 720
ppm, the photosynthetic assimilation in the seedlings doubled.
Hymenaea courbaril is a very important species in programmes of recuperation of degraded
rain forests in the
Neotropics. It appears late in the natural regeneration process being classified as a 'late successional' or
climax species. ==Species==