

FruitĪrgan fruit falls in July, when black and dry. Especially near Essaouira, the argan tree is frequently climbed by goats. In some parts of Morocco, argan takes the place of the olive as a source of forage, oil, timber, and fuel in Berber society.

Locals use the newfound wealth to buy more goats and the goats stunt the growth of the argan trees by climbing up and eating their leaves and fruit.Īrgan is grown in Israel, in the Arabah, and Negev. However, the wealth brought by argan oil export has also created threats to argan trees in the form of increased goat population. The best hope for the conservation of the trees may lie in the recent development of a thriving export market for argan oil as a high-value product. Their area has shrunk by about half during the last 100 years, due to charcoal-making, grazing, and increasingly intensive cultivation. In Morocco, arganeraie forests now cover some 8,280 km 2 (3,200 sq mi) and are designated as a UNESCO biosphere reserve. In medieval Arabic pharmacological sources, the tree is known as harjān, a name which is also derived from Tasussit argan. Tasussit has a rich vocabulary for the various parts of the fruit, its stages of ripeness, and its harvesting and processing. The scientific name argania is derived from argan, the name of the tree in Tasussit, the Berber language which is spoken by the majority of the people living in the areas where the tree is endemic.

The fruit takes over a year to mature, ripening in June to July of the following year. This surrounds the very hard nut, which contains one (occasionally two or three) small, oil-rich seeds. The fruit is 2–4 cm (0.79–1.57 in) long and 1.5–3 cm (0.59–1.18 in) broad, with a thick, bitter peel surrounding a sweet-smelling but unpleasantly flavored layer of the pulpy pericarp. The flowers are small, with five pale yellow-green petals flowering is in April. The leaves are small, 2–4 cm (0.79–1.57 in) long, and oval with a rounded apex. The crown has a circumference of about 70 m (230 ft) and the branches lean towards the ground. They are thorny, with gnarled trunks and wide spreading crown. Argan trees grow to 8–10 m (26–33 ft) high and live up to approximately 200 years. Argan seeds (Argania Spinosa) Price for Package of 3 seeds.Īrgania (Berber: ⴰⵔⴳⴰⵏ Argan) is a genus of flowering plants containing the sole species Argania Spinosa, known as argan, a tree endemic to the calcareous semidesert Sous valley of southwestern Morocco.
