2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Cappel (Latin Stelechocarpus burakol) - a fruit crop belonging to the rather rich Annonov family.
Description
Cappel is an evergreen fruit tree, the height of which can reach up to twenty-five meters. And the thickness of its powerful branches often reaches forty centimeters.
Cappel fruits are oval or spherical berries that grow up to six centimeters long and up to four and a half centimeters wide. By the way, the shape of these berries bears some resemblance to pears. Fruits grow not only on the branches - quite often they can be seen on the lower parts of the trunks, and the length of their stalks often reaches eight centimeters. As a rule, berries grow in clusters, while each cluster can have up to sixteen fruits.
From above, each berry is covered with a brown, rough and rather leathery rind - its thickness can reach one millimeter. The juicy and sweet pulp of ripe berries has a brownish or orange color, while it tastes somewhat like a mango, and its aroma is similar to that of a violet.
Inside each fruit are brown flattened oval-shaped seeds, the width of which does not exceed one and a half centimeters, and the length is three centimeters. Usually, one berry contains from four to six seeds, however, in some specimens they may be completely absent.
Where grows
Kepel is a plant native to the Java backbone. There you can meet him up to a height of six hundred meters above sea level. By the way, in his homeland, to this day, he is considered the noblest culture, the fruits of which only aristocrats have the right to taste.
Individual trees are also found in a number of countries in Central America or Southeast Asia, as well as in Queensland (Northern Australia) and in Florida, but there they grow either as feral forms or as cultivated plantings.
Application
It is customary to eat exclusively ripe berries - they differ from immature specimens in that the films located under the rough peels change their color from light greenish to calm pale brown or yellow.
The diuretic effect of the fruits allows them to be used to treat various renal ailments. They will also serve well with gout, since the berries contain substances that help to remove uric acid salts from the body. And the systematic use of young leaves of the plant helps to reduce harmful cholesterol.
Cappel juice is an excellent deodorizing agent - when applied to the skin, it begins to exude the most delicate violet scent. And the regular use of berries inside leads to the fact that the smell of violets is acquired by human sweat.
It is impossible not to mention that the fruits of the cap from ancient times have been used by the fair sex for contraception, since they are endowed with the ability to cause temporary infertility.
Contraindications
There are no special contraindications to the use of kepel berries, however, individual intolerance and allergic manifestations are not completely excluded.
Growing and caring
Since the cappel is very thermophilic, it can grow exclusively in tropical climates. It is very picky about soils, but it grows extremely slowly. The flowering of capes usually occurs in autumn (as a rule, in September-October), and the formation of fruits - in the spring (March or April).
Cappel is a monoecious plant, which causes quite serious differences between female and male flowers. Male flowers are always smaller (up to one centimeter) than female flowers, and they grow mainly in the upper part of the tree. As for the development of female flowers, it always occurs in the lower parts of the trunks, and their diameter often reaches three centimeters.
Mature trees boast excellent yields - up to fifty kilograms per year (this is about a thousand pieces of berries).
