This is a tropical tree called Bedo Tree. Its DBH is often around 1 m and its height is more than 20 meters. This tree looks like a palm tree, and some are like palm trees. This kind of tree has many palmately divided leaves clustered at the top of the tree, which is very huge. One leaf with petiole is two or three meters long. This kind of leaf was used by ancient Indians to make paper.
India is the birthplace of Buddhism, and there are many temples. In those temples, scriptures written by Bedouin leaves are often preserved, which are called Bedouin scriptures. Myrica rubra leaves used for writing must be collected from Bedouin trees over 8 years old. Bedouin leaves are tubular and light brown. They are cut from the petiole and spread out to form a fan. Each leaf has 30 thick veins, and nearly 30 small leaves can be obtained by removing the veins with a knife. This banded leaflet is more than 2 meters long, with one end slightly wider and the other end slightly narrower.
This blade can't be used, it must be specially made. People first roll up the leaves and put them in a large pot and boil them in water. Then take it out to dry. In order to make the leaves elastic and not easy to break, it is necessary to hang the dried leaves on a wooden stick, press both ends of the leaves with both hands and grind them up and down, so that the surface of the leaves will be ground off and become white and smooth. After this processing, each scallop leaf is cut according to the required size, gathered together, burned a hole in the scallop leaf with a red-hot iron bar, and sewn up with a rope.
Strictly speaking, the scriptures on Bayeux are not written, but "engraved". People use a thin iron pen to carve words on leaves, and then use ink to paint on leaves, that is, "color". This ink is a mixture of black soot from oil lamps and cinnamon oil. After smearing, it can not only leave clear handwriting on the notch, but also have the functions of moisture-proof, anti-corrosion and moth-proof for laurel leaves. Perhaps because the "paper" of laurel leaves has the advantage of easy long-term preservation, people still use laurel leaves to write long after the invention of real paper.