What Is A Rubber Tree

Rubber the kind you get from a tree starts off as white and runny latex.

What is a rubber tree.

A rubber tree plant is also known as a ficus elastica these large trees can grow up to 50 feet 15 m tall. In the wild the rubber tree will grow to heights of 100 to 130 feet and can live up to 100 years. Rubber tree definition any tree that yields latex from which rubber is produced especially hevea brasiliensis of the spurge family native to south america the chief commercial source of rubber. More than half of all rubber produced goes into automobile tires.

The kind of rubber you see in the world around you in things like car and bicycle tires is vulcanized. Hevea brasiliensis the pará rubber tree sharinga tree seringueira or most commonly the rubber tree or rubber plant is a flowering plant belonging to the spurge family euphorbiaceae it is the most economically important member of the genus hevea because the milky latex extracted from the tree is the primary source of natural rubber. Rubber elastic substance obtained from the exudations of certain tropical plants natural rubber or derived from petroleum and natural gas synthetic rubber. Because of its elasticity resilience and toughness rubber is the basic constituent of the tires used in automotive vehicles aircraft and bicycles.

When learning how to care for a rubber tree plant there are a few key things to remember but rubber plant care isn t as difficult as one might think. Cooked with sulfur and often other. Currently rubber is harvested mainly in the form of the latex from the rubber tree or others. In order to collect the latex milk from tree an incision is made in the bark of the rubber tree which is called tapping.

Natural rubber is produced by the rubber tree hevea brasiliensis. Cultivated on plantations in the tropics and subtropics especially in southeast asia and western africa it replaced the rubber plant in the early 20th century as the chief source of natural rubber. The latex then is refined into rubber that is ready for commercial processing. Depending on the use following the tapping stage the latex milk is processed in different ways.

The rest goes. The latex is a sticky milky colloid drawn off by making incisions in the bark and collecting the fluid in vessels in a process called tapping. Even when it s set into a product this latex based natural rubber is very squashy pretty smelly and not very useful. About 70 per cent of natural latex is used for tires.

Rubber tree south american tropical tree of the spurge family euphorbiaceae.