Nālma tree

The nālma tree is a fruiting hybrid of nojirn and dazu trees, created by the Shavichehis Apothecaria.
Nojirn fruit has been used in folk remedies throught the Fourth Age, especially its skin, which promotes healing and prevents infection, and is epecially good for treating burns. However, the sudden climactic upheaval between the Fourth and Fifth Ages, and a lack of defences to parasitic spirits, led to a decline in the nojirn tree's range and population. The tree was known to be difficult to cultivate, in addition to being sensitive to background magic, and it was hybridised with a variety of new tree sepcies in an attempt to prevent it going extinct entirely.
The most successful hybrid was the nālma - the result of crossing the nojirn with the the Western dazu. Nālma trees are thaumically-hardy and the fruit retains many of nojirn tree's desirable properties, with the added resiliance of the dazu.
Although it can be grown from seed, most examples in the Shavichehis  glasshouses are grown from splicing cuttings onto dazu rootstock, as roots of the hybrid nālma trees remain suceptible to parasitism by spirits and are often underdeveloped.
The skin of nālma fruit is used to treat skin infections, and as protective covering in cases of skin-loss (eg: in burns). It can be dried for transport and keeps for up to a year without loing potency, needing only to be rehydrated by boiling in water.
The flesh of the nālma fruit is high in protein and can also be dried into something resembling jerky. It contains many of the nutrients of the dazufruit, but has a bitter flavour that is concentrated by the drying process, and must be soaked before eating.

Related Ethnicities

• Shavichehis apothecaries