Кастилла эластичная (Castilla elastica Cerv.) – почти забытый каучуконос

Abstract

When writing this botanical and historical review, it was necessary to get acquainted with the works of different authors from the XVII to the XXI century, written in Latin, old Spanish, old French, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, English and Russian. It shows the development of knowledge about growing on the American continents rubber-bearing trees, including their species definition and a botanical description. The main attention is paid to the Castilla elastica Cerv. from the Moraceae family, which served as a source of raw materials for the manufacture of an analogue of modern vulcanized rubber for ancient peoples of Mesoamerica and was then for many years the main rubber-bearing plant, whereas the priority have been given to Hevea brasiliensis (Wild. ex A. Juss.) Muell.-Arg. only after the beginning of plantation cultivation of this species in the end of XIX century. However, interest in Castilla did not completely disappear, and in the coming millennium, attempts were made to resume plantations. Sequencing of individual fragments of the nuclear and chloroplast genomes of Castilla species has also begun. The history of the appearance of the second erroneous name of this genus as Castilloa and the long process of returning the original name Castilla are described.