Blue cucumber
| Blue cucumber | ||||||||||||
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Blue cucumber ( Decaisnea fargesii ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Decaisnea fargesii | ||||||||||||
| Franch. |
The blue cucumber ( Decaisnea fargesii ), and blue pod or blue pods shrub called, is a in the mountain forests of western China and Tibet (up to 3000 Hm) and Nepal -based, shrub-like plant of the family of lardizabalaceae (Lardizabalaceae).
The name of the genus Decaisnea reminds of Joseph Decaisne (1807-1882), a Belgian-French botanist and agronomist (and first editor of the family), and the epithet of Paul Farges (1844-1912), a French missionary and plant collector in China. There the plant is called in Chinese 猫 屎 瓜 , pinyin māo shǐ guā - "cat's droppings".
description
The deciduous shrub ( zone 5 ), which is frost-tolerant to about −20 ° C, reaches heights of up to 3–4 meters and forms an umbrella-like crown with age.
The longer stalked leaves are pinnate unpaired and up to 0.6–1 meters long. There are up to about 9-21, entire, egg-shaped to elongated, more rarely obovate and pointed to pointed, slightly leathery, leaflets bald on the upper side . The leaflets are 5-14 centimeters long. The distant lateral leaflets are only briefly petiolate, the terminal leaflet longer. The autumn color is yellow, the young leaves are reddish. The veins are pinnate and embossed in relief on the top.
The blue cucumber is monoecious, monoecious . The pendulous flowers are functionally unisexual, with a simple flower envelope , the petals are missing. Flowering time is April to May, the flowers are bell-shaped and yellow-greenish in color. The stalked flowers are in bare, terminal often pendulous and about 25-35 centimeters long or longer grapes together. The flowers are each bracts present. The 6 fine-haired, roofy and 2–3 cm long sepals, in two unequal circles, are eilanzettlich. There are 6 röhrig intergrown stamens or free, shorter Staminodien with Antheroden to the ovary and 3 free, upper permanent stamp or shorter Pistillode in the stamen tube available. The anthers or antherodes have pointed appendages at the top.
The blue to purple-colored, elongated, cylindrical, somewhat distended and leathery, many-seeded and pointed, up to about 5–10 cm long and about 2 cm thick follicles ripen from September to October. The thick-skinned fruits are soft, more or less straight or slightly curved and hot-nubby, they stand in a pelvic fruit up to three together or appear individually. The many black-purple and smooth, flattened seeds lie in two rows in a whitish, slimy-gelatinous, translucent and sticky, edible and slightly sweet pulp. The seeds are about 8-10 millimeters in size.
use
In the mountain forests of western China, the fruits are collected and the gelatinous fruit content is consumed fresh.
The plant with the interesting fruit decorations is particularly noticeable as an ornamental wood in parks in autumn after the leaves have fallen.
literature
- Marilena Idžojtić: Dendrology. Academic Press, 2018, ISBN 978-0-444-64175-5 , p. 233.
- Maarten JM Christenhusz: An Overview of Lardizabalaceae. In: Curtis's Botanical Magazine. 29 (3), 2012, pp. 235-276, online (PDF).
- Journal de Botanique. Tome VI, 1892, p. 234 f, archive.org .
Web links
- Decaisnea insignis at Useful Temperate Plants.
- The blue cucumber : Decaisnea insignis on flora-obscura.de, accessed on September 18, 2019.
- Decaisnea insignis at low tide nurseries (with pictures).
Individual evidence
- ^ Decaisnea fargesii in the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN), USDA , ARS , National Genetic Resources Program. National Germplasm Resources Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland. Retrieved January 28, 2017.
- ↑ Dericks-Tan, Vollbrecht: On the trail of wild fruits in Europe. Abadi-Verlag 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-021129-4 , pp. 52-53.