Common Chastuha

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Video: Common Chastuha

Video: Common Chastuha
Video: Копаем растения для пруда на реке. Водная мята. Частуха. Осока. 2024, March
Common Chastuha
Common Chastuha
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Common chastuha (lat. Alisma plantago-aquatica) - a herbaceous perennial plant that loves a humid habitat, which is a typical species of the genus Alisma, or Chastukha (lat. Alisma) of the family of the same name Chastukhovy (lat. Alismataceae). The plant can live both on land and in water, slightly changing its appearance and, as a rule, not endowing the underwater world with flowering. The leaves, forming a root rosette on the surface of the earth, are similar in appearance to the leaves of Plantain, which gave rise to calling the Common Chastukha "Water Plantain", although by their nature these plants are not even related. The plant is quite toxic for herbivores, but people manage to eat the starchy rhizome of the plant, having previously subjected it to hot processing. Like many toxic plants in small doses, it turns into a healer of human ailments.

What's in your name

If the origin of the Latin name of the genus "Alisma" botanists refer to Ancient Greece, in which even before our era a similar plant bore exactly the name that descendants learned about from one of the "fathers" of the science of "botany" with the name Pedanius Dioscorides, then the Russian name of the "Chastukha" clan remains silent. It remains only to make assumptions yourself, what prompted people to such an unsonic name.

With the specific Latin epithet "plantago-aquatica", the situation is somewhat simpler, since these two words are literally translated into Russian by the words "plantain-aquatic", which indicates some external similarity of the Common Chastuha with the Plantain plant, but, unlike it, Chastukha the common one prefers the water element. Such associations gave rise to the existence of other names of the described plant: "Plantain Chastuha" and "Water Plantain", although morphologically Chastukha and Plantain are completely different plants.

Description

The short thick rhizome of Chastukha vulgaris is the basis of the perennial herbaceous plant. The roots of Chastukha extend from it into the soil, and a rosette of basal leaves on long petioles and a leafless peduncle stem are born on the surface of the earth. As a rule, the height of the plant varies depending on living conditions from twenty to sixty centimeters, but the peduncle stem can reach ninety centimeters.

The base of the basal leaves has a rounded or heart-shaped shape, and the shape of the leaf plate changes from ovoid to lanceolate; under conditions of life in water, the leaves become linear. The maximum length of a sheet plate is twenty centimeters. The basal leaves of plants living on the soil, in their appearance, are very similar to plantain leaves both in the form of a leaf plate and in a central vein with lateral veins extending from it. This gave rise to the name "Water plantain".

Inflorescences are crowned only by the stems of aerial plants. When living under water, as a rule, it does not come to flowering. The inflorescence looks like a series of overturned umbrellas arranged in tiers on the peduncle. Each tier is formed by almost vertical pedicels with a slight slope, resembling the spokes of an umbrella. Each pedicel is decorated with one miniature flower formed by three green sepals and three conical-rounded white petals with a wavy-toothed outer side. The petals are independent of each other and, after pollination, fall off, leaving sepals at the fruit. The flat receptacle contains numerous carpels (female organs of the flower) and six stamens. The flower, although small in size, is very picturesque.

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The fruit of Chastukha vulgaris is a multi-nut, small and flattened on the sides. When ripe, it breaks down into tiny, single-seeded fruits that can swim.

Usage

The plant's toxicity does not prevent people from feasting on its starchy rhizome if there is nothing else to eat. It is boiled or cooked like a baked potato on the burnt coals of a fire.

Beautiful leaves and picturesque flowers can decorate the shores of a summer cottage, without requiring special attention to their care.

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