Calotropis gigantea Crown Flower

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Calotropis gigantea Crown Flower

Calotropis gigantea Crown Flower

Calotropisgigantea is one of the flowering plant in the world. It also known as crown fower (English), arka (India), biduri (Sundanese), and rubik (Aceh).

Calotropis gigantea is a plant that drought resistant, salt tolerant to a relatively high degree, grows wild up to 900 meters throughout the country and it live on sandy soils with average annual rainfall is 300-400 mm. The seeds dispersed with the wind and animal, and this plant quickly becomes established as a weed along degraded roadsides, lagoon edges and in overgrazed native pastures. This plant has a preference often dominant in some areas of cultivation that abandoned especially because disturbed sandy soils and low rainfall.

Calotropis gigantea have some special characteristic. The plant grows very well in a anytype of soils and different environmental conditions. There's does not require cultivation practices for this plant. It is one of the few plants not consumed by grazing animals because the stucture of the plant cannot be processed by the digestive system of herbivore. It thrives on poor soils of mineral particularly where overgrazing has removed competition from native grasses.

Some times Calotropis gigantea is the only survivor in some areas, where nothing else grows. It is an example for drought tolerant plant and the pioneer of vegetation in desert soil. This plant produce latex, and they have extensively branched root system and thick leaves with waxy coverage which are the xerophytic adaptations. Because of that, this plant distributed in tropical and subtropical area of the world.

The seeds of this plant freely float in the air and natural regeneration is very common. Vegetative propagation doing through stem and root cuttings is very useful in large scale multiplication of the superior genotypes.

Calotropis gigantea has been cultivated in South America and in the Caribbean Islands for the production of fibres at a spacing of 1-1.5 meters. When cultivated annualy and yields of up to 500 kg/ha are hoped. A single harvest per season is better than double or triple harvest. The result of a single harvest would saving the energy input both on the form and in the processing plant. It is well suited for intensive energy farming in dry or semi-dry regions where snow is not a limiting factor.

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