The Pharmacy of Flowers
Sandalwood
Santalum album
Sandalwood is an aromatic tree that has played an important role in medicine, perfumery, spiritual culture, and religious ceremony. Sandalwood is an excellent example of the challenges facing many medicinal and aromatic species: demand is high, wild sources are depleted, and the trees mature slowly.
Sandalwood is one of the oldest incense materials, which has been in use for at least 4,000 years. Greek texts from the 1st century A.D. mentions sandalwood as one of the items being imported from India. The steam distilled oil is used as the base in making attars, the traditional perfumes of India. The oil is used in international fragrance industry as an important fixative for perfumes.
Sandalwood is a small to medium-sized evergreen tree; it is semi-parasitic, and requires complex symbiotic ecological relationships to thrive. Sandalwood trees reach their full maturity in 60 to 80 years, when the heartwood and roots have achieved their greatest oil content. The harvesting of sandalwood is destructive, because the trees must be uprooted.
Sandalwood trees are facing numerous ecological, political, and economic challenges. They are one of the most lucrative forest products in the world, and under threat from the high demand for wood and oil. Continuous harvesting, little regeneration because of fires, farming, cattle grazing, and disease have led to serious declines in wild populations. Although sandalwood as a species in not immanently endangered, the old growth trees which produce the highest quality oil are under extreme pressure; some authorities believe that the last of the old trees will be gone within twenty years.
The price of sandalwood in India increased ten-fold between 1980 and 1990, and smuggling is widespread. The bulk of what leaves India for the commercial market is exported illegally. Political corruption, a large black market, and lack of resources make enforcement of existing regulations ineffective.
Large programs of sandalwood reforestation are underway in Indonesia. Vietnam and New Caledonia have well controlled plantations of genuine sandalwood; however, the cultivation of sandalwood in India has had limited success. Sandalwood as a short or medium-term source of income is unattractive because the oil is only obtained from the heartwood of mature trees and the tree is slow growing.
The quality of Indian sandalwood oil is generally poor, due to widespread adulteration and distillation of oil from immature trees. Adulteration is no longer detectable by standard tests. According to experts, more than 85 percent of Indian sandalwood oil is adulterated or from immature trees. A true sandalwood oil must be legally procured, and come from mature trees.
Sandalwood has been used extensively in traditional Asian medicine. The wood is used in decoctions, powders, pills, and ointments as a cooling astringent with anti-inflammatory properties; the oil is used in massage and aromatherapy primarily as a calming and relaxing fragrance for enhancing mental and emotional peace.
Next: Agarwood