2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Prickly capers are among the plants of the family called capers, in Latin the name of this plant will sound like this: Capparis spinosa L. As for the name of the family of spiny capers, in Latin it will be like this: Capparidaceae Juss.
Description of prickly capers
Spiny capers are a semi-shrub endowed with slightly pubescent creeping branches. The length of the stems can reach about one hundred and fifty centimeters. The leaves are rounded, they can be either obovate or elliptical with spiny stipules painted in yellowish tones. The flowers of this plant will be quite large, they are single, they will be about five to eight centimeters in diameter. The petals of such flowers will be colored yellowish, white and pale pink. The flowers of prickly capers will sit in the axils of the leaves. The fruits are oval in shape, they are berry-like and rather fleshy, such fruits are painted in green tones with a large number of kidney-shaped brown seeds.
The flowering of thorny capers occurs in the month of May. Under natural conditions, this plant is found in the Crimea, Dagestan, Central Asia, Eastern Transcaucasia and Kazakhstan, with the exception of only the northern regions. For growth, the plant prefers dry stony places, pebbles, rocks, weedy places and places along river cliffs, as well as gravelly, clayey and solonetz soils.
It should be noted that in Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, such plants will form a kind of caper semi-desert, in the place where the groundwater will lie at a rather great depth.
Description of the medicinal properties of prickly capers
Thorny capers are endowed with very valuable healing properties, while for medicinal purposes it is recommended to use flowers, buds, fruits and bark of the roots of this plant. The roots should be harvested in late autumn, and the buds and flowers - in the period from May to June, while the fruits are harvested in July-August.
The fruits of this plant contain rutin, steroid saponins, sugar, iodine, thioglycosides, ascorbic acid, red pigment, myrosin enzyme, essential and fatty oils. The flowers and buds of prickly capers contain saponins, quercetin, dyes, rutin and ascorbic acid. The roots contain the glycoside capparidin, while the bark and leaves contain stachydrin.
The fresh parts of this plant are endowed with antiseptic, diuretic, astringent, analgesic and antiseptic effects. It is recommended to lubricate wounds with the juice of spiny caper flowers, and also such juice should be drunk with scrofula.
In case of toothache, the fresh bark of the roots of this plant should be chewed, and such bark can also be applied to festering wounds. As for traditional medicine, here the fruits of this plant are used for gum disease, toothache, hemorrhoids and thyroid diseases.
In a crushed form, the bark of the roots of prickly capers is used for rheumatism. A decoction prepared on the basis of the bark of the roots of this plant is used for paralysis, hysterical seizures, angina pectoris, diseases of the spleen and liver, as well as for jaundice and rheumatic colds. The same decoction can be used to lubricate the skin with scabies.
A decoction of the twigs and leaves of this plant is recommended for diabetes mellitus, and the seeds are used for headaches. It should be noted that this plant can be eaten. The fruits and buds of prickly capers are used as a seasoning for cold snacks, and pickled shoots and flower buds will give fish and meat dishes a rather pleasant sour taste. It is noteworthy that Uzbeks and Armenians use ripe berries of this plant in cooking.
Recommended:
Capers
Capers (lat.Capparis) - a vegetable crop belonging to the Capers family. True, sometimes they try to attribute this culture to the Cabbage family. Southern Europe and North Africa are considered the birthplace of this extraordinary plant. Description Capers are rather thorny creeping shrubs with a height of one to two meters.
Prickly Carp
Prickly carp (lat.Echinocystis) - an ornamental-leaved plant, which is a representative of the Pumpkin family. Another name is mad cucumber or echinocystis. Description The prickly carp is a herbaceous annual liana with a height of two and a half to four meters.
Prickly Pear
Opuntia (Latin Opuntia) - a genus of thorny plants of the Cactaceae family (Latin Cactaceae). There are about two hundred species in the genus Opuntia, being the largest plant community in the prickly Cactaceae family. Its juicy oval "
Pereskia Prickly
Pereskia prickly also known under the name Pereskia aculeata, in Latin the name of this plant will sound as follows: Pereskia aculeata. Pereskia prickly is one of the plants of a family called cactaceae, in Latin the name of this family will be like this:
Prickly Pine
Pine thorny (lat.Pinus pungens) - coniferous tree of modest size, one of the species of the Pine genus (Latin Pinus) of the Pine family (Latin Pinaceae). Usually grows on the steep slopes of a mountain range in North America with the name Appalachian, familiar to us from books and films about the Indians.
