Areca catechu (A bit of our story with areca nut; Acehnese: Boh Pineung)

I think that my country, Aceh, is one of the producers for betel nut (so called in the western world for this plant). We, here, call it: Pineung. Malays call it Pinang. In my country, Areca catechu cultivated in large quantities, and being a good income since the past until today. Betel nuts becomes a commodity export to countries in South Asia such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. There, betel nuts are made for a kind of sweets, even betel nut can also be used as a producer of red dye and tanning materials.

Beetle nut trees is a plant that very close to our life in the village, especially in our traditional life. Betel chewing is a habit that can not be separated from the daily life of the Acehnese. Presents betel to guests who visited the house is a sign of respect. We were chewing betel since adolescence. And the areca nut is a principal composition to chew the betel leaves, in addition to lime and gambier. It was difficult to imagine chewing betel without areca nut. And the areca nut is used to chewing betel nut is ripe on the tree.

Besides to chew betel leaves, areca nut is ripe dried until it was fibrous skin, then peeled and the seeds were taken rounded. We are here call that: rounded areca nut. There is also a ripe areca nut then halved and dried, and after dried, taken out the seeds, and became a cloven areca nut

That betel nuts, were sold for export to the countries of consumers. I participated in this work since childhood through adolescence. In my grandfather's house, long ago, we worked skinning areca nut to earn pocket money. We were trained to productive since childhood. So betel nuts, besides being very close to our lives, that also gives a lot of memories.

Many parts of areca nut trees, that can be used. So, here I quote the description contained in a source:

Areca nut is a species of palm. The tree is straight and slim can reach a height of 25 meters with a diameter of approximately 15 cm and there is also more than that. Leaf sheaths are tubular, with a length of 80 cm, short leaf stalks; leaf blade length up to 80 cm. Cob flowers with sheath (spatha), that long and easy to fall off, appear under the leaves, it is approximately 75 cm length, with short stalk branching double. The axis up end of length 35 cm with one female flowers at the base, topped with a lot of male flowers are arranged in two rows that stuck in the groove. 4 mm length male flowers, white and yellow; six stamens. Female flowers approximately 1.5 cm length, green. Small fruit obovate elongated, red orange, length 3.5 to 7 cm, with wall fruit stringy. One seed, egg-shaped, and have an overview of such nets.