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Boswellia sacra
Also called Olibanum Tree
Boswellia sacra is a small, deciduous tree or shrub from dry, rocky hillsides in the Horn of Africa and southern Arabia, grown for the aromatic resin (frankincense) tapped from its bark. Its key to growing it is a hot, dry, well-drained site with very little water.
Boswellia sacra, also known as Boswellia carteri and others, and commonly called the frankincense tree or the olibanum tree, is a tree in the genus Boswellia, in the Burseraceae family, from which frankincense, a resinous dried sap, is harvested. The olibanum tree is a plant native to the countries of Oman and Yemen, in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, and to Somalia and Ethiopia, in the Horn of Africa. In 2012, it was replanted in Israel in the Middle East, 1,500 years after dying out there.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Boswellia sacra by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
