Cucumis maderaspatanus
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Cucumis maderaspatanus |
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Cucumis maderaspatanus is a species from the genus of cucumbers ( Cucumis ) with distribution in the tropics of the Old World . The species grows in open habitats, mostly in disturbed places. It is used as a vegetable and medicinal plant.
description
Cucumis maderaspatanus is a trailing, branched herbaceous climber with a perennial rhizome, with prostrate or climbing stems that can reach lengths of up to three or four meters. The stem is stiff, the tendrils simple. The leaves are many-sided, with broadly ovate, semicircular or spear-shaped blade, with a heart-shaped base, the blade is deeply lobed or divided into three to five leaflets , the middle lobes or the middle leaflets being the largest. The leaves reach about two to ten centimeters in length with about the same width. The leaf margin is serrated, the leaf tip (apex) blunt to pointed. The leaves have a petiole of variable length, about 0.5 to 9 inches long, they are hairy on both sides.
Male and female flowers sit in separate inflorescences (rarely some females are mixed in with the male), the male 2 to 20, the female often individually, rarely up to 8. The flowers are about 1 to 3, rarely up to 5 millimeters long stalked . The small flowers are colored yellow. The calyx consists of a 1 to 2 millimeter long calyx tube with calyx tips about the same length, the five egg-shaped petals are about 3 millimeters long. The juicy round fruits are 1 to 7 (rarely 8), almost sessile, in axillary fruit stands. They are smooth, about 0.5 to 1.5 centimeters in diameter, initially green with light green stripes, later red, with dark stripes or without them. They are bristly haired when young, later smooth and shiny. Each fruit contains around 10 to 20 seeds.
The species can bloom and fruit in the tropics all year round. In Pakistan, the flowering period is from April to October, in China from April to August.
Ecology and location
The species grows in a variety of open habitats, in open shrubland, savannah, cultivated land, forest edges of deciduous forests. It occurs in Thailand from sea level up to 1300 m altitude, in China from 400 to 1700 m altitude.
distribution
Cucumis maderaspatanus grows in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, China, Burma and Thailand. Distribution data from many other regions, from Australia to Africa, are erroneous, they refer to very similar species that are now separated.
use
Young leaves and sprouts of the species are used in southern India as vegetables and to prepare pancakes called dosa . The species is collected in the wild, but not grown as a crop. The plant is used in ethnomedicine and as part of the traditional Indian healing art called Ayurveda against a variety of diseases.
Taxonomy and systematics
The species was first described by Linnaeus in 1753 in his work Species Plantarum as Cucumis maderaspatanus . It was transferred to the genera Mukia or Melothria by other authors and until recently it was in most works under the synonymous name Mukia maderaspatana (L.) M. Roem . listed. Other synonyms are Bryonia cordifolia L., Bryonia scabrella L.f. In Europe it was known as Cucumis Maderaspatensis fructu minimo by Leonard Plukenet in his work Phytographia as early as 1691 . It was first introduced to England in 1805 by William Roxburgh .
The genus Cucumis , including related and similar genera, was examined phylogenomically in 2010 using a combination of several nuclear and plastid genes . Earlier results from 2007 were confirmed that the genus Mukia must be included in a broader genus Cucumis . In addition, it was shown that the " Cucumis maderaspatanus " from Asia, Australia and Africa, previously considered a polymorphic collective species, is actually a complex of at least nine different species that are not even particularly closely related. According to the new results, the true Cucumis maderaspatanus is only found in East Asia. The genus Cucumis , in the traditional conception with only two species, according to the new conception comprises around 25 species with native habitat in the tropical and subtropical latitudes of the Old World.
The species has no significance as a cultivated plant, its fruits are not used. Fruits called “Madras cucumber”, which are offered on markets in southern India, do not belong to this type.
Individual evidence
- ^ Willem JJO de Wilde & Brigitta EE Duyfjes (2006): Mukia Arn. (Cucurbitaceae) in Asia, in particular in Thailand. Thai Forest Bulletin (Botany) 34: 38-52.
- ↑ S. & S. Nazimuddin Shaharyar H. Naqvi: Mukia maderaspatana Flora of Pakistan online.
- ↑ Anmin Lu & Charles Jeffrey: Mukia maderaspatana Flora of China online, Vol. 19.
- ↑ AJA Petrus (2013): Ethnobotanical and pharmacological profile with propagation strategies of Mukia maderaspatana (L.) M. Roem. A concise overview. Indian Journal of Natural Products and Resources (IJNPR) 4 (1): 9-26.
- ↑ Susanne S. Renner & Arun K. Pandey (2013): The Cucurbitaceae of India: Accepted names, synonyms, geographic distribution, and information on images and DNA sequences. PhytoKeys 20: 53-118. doi: 10.3897 / phytokeys.20.3948
- ↑ Patrizia Sebastian, Hanno Schaefer, Ian RH Telford, Susanne S. Renner (2010): Cucumber (Cucumis sativus) and melon (C. melo) have numerous wild relatives in Asia and Australia, and the sister species of melon is from Australia. PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 107 (32): 14269-14273. doi: 10.1073 / pnas.1005338107
- ^ Y. Weng & ZY Sun (2011): Major Cucurbits. Chapter 1 in Yi-Hong Wang, TK Behera, Chittaranjan Kole editors: Genetics, Genomics and Breeding of Cucurbits. CRC Press, 425 pp. ISBN 157808766X .
- ↑ Madras, Mangalore and a yummy cucumber http://www.dnaindia.com , accessed May 2, 2018.
Web links
- Madras pea pumpkin, Cucumis maderaspatanus . www.flowersofindia.net
- Cucumis maderaspatanus. JSTOR Global Plants Database.