Euphorbia resinifera
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Maghrebian column milk ( Euphorbia resinifera ) in the flowering period |
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Euphorbia resinifera , also known as Maghrebian column milk or square euphorbie , is a species from the milkweed family. The plant grows in Morocco on the slopes of the Atlas .
features
Euphorbia resinifera is a succulent shrub that is reminiscent of cacti in its habit . It forms hemispherical, densely packed, cushion-like colonies that reach a height of 40 to 50 centimeters with a diameter of 2 to 3 meters. The shoot axes are branched from the base, green to gray-green in color, they are 2 to 4 centimeters in diameter. They are square, with four slightly separated, serrated ribs. The spine-bearing teeth (protrusions) on the ribs are triangular to egg-shaped, each 5 to 10 millimeters apart, they have paired, maroon-colored spines (interpreted as transformed stipules) 5 to 10 millimeters in length. The rudimentary leaves that arise at the base of the thorns soon fall off.
The inflorescences appear at the tip of the shoot, they consist of three cyathia (the characteristic pseudo-flowers of the milkweed family), of which the two lateral, short-stalked hermaphrodites, the central, seated one is purely male. The cup-like flower cover made of bracts (involucre) has a diameter of about 2.5 millimeters. The five to six yellow colored nectar glands are elliptical to heart-shaped. The capsule fruit is yellowish in color when ripe.
From the similar Euphorbia echinus , with which it can occur together, distinguish the four-sided, not five- to eight-sided shoot and the interrupted, not connected on the edges thorns.
Distribution and location
Euphorbia resinifera is endemic to Morocco , it grows on stony slopes of the Atlas Mountains , more rarely also in the Anti-Atlas , in the region around Tafraoute , plants from there have been described as var. Chlorosoma Croizat. In the atlas, the species sometimes forms huge cushions, for example in the Demnate area, leaving hardly any space for other plant species. It grows here at heights of 600 to 1100 meters, there are isolated reports up to 1800 meters. It grows at low altitudes up to around 850 meters in steppe bushes, together with the dwarf palm ( Chamaerops humilis ) and the acacia species Vachellia gummifera , at higher altitudes partly as an understory in loose holm oak groves.
In Morocco there are three similar succulent, cactus-like spurge species, in addition to Euphorbia resinifera and Euphorbia echinus Hook. f. & Coss. comes Euphorbia officinarum L. subsp. beaumiereana Hook f. & Coss. in front. The Canary Spurge ( Euphorbia canariensis ) , which is endemic to the Canary Islands, is similar .
The also endemic plant species Striga barthlottii from the summer root family parasitizes on the species .
Chemical constituents
During the flowering period, a milky sap called Euphorbium Officinarum can be extracted from the cactus-like trunk and the sprouts . This milky juice contains a high concentration of resiniferatoxin , which is used as a starting material in the development of a new class of analgesics . Research has shown that resiniferatoxin interacts with the TRPV1 channel . TRPV1 is a cation channel of the nervous system and serves as a pain receptor. It also reacts to the vanilloid capsaicin , which is found in some types of peppers . The milk juice also contains alpha- and beta-euphorbol as well as the triterpene alcohol euphol.
Cultural history
The plant is already mentioned in ancient times. It is said to have been discovered and first described by a king, Juba II of Mauritania, on Mount Atlas. He named the plant after his personal physician Euphorbus (brother of Antonius Musa , personal physician of Augustus) "Euphorbia". This means that not only the name of this species, but also of the entire current plant genus and family, ultimately goes back to King Juba. Juba's work on the plant has been lost; we know of him from extensive quotations in the Naturalis historia of the Roman scholar Pliny . The species was also mentioned by other ancient authors such as Galen and Dioscurides because of its medicinal properties , an illustration from the Codex Neapolitanus , a copy after Dioscurides from the 6th century, has been identified as the oldest illustration of the species.
Individual evidence
- ^ José Manuel Sánchez de Lorenzo-Cáceres: Las euphorbias suculentas. XII. congreso national de cactus y suculentas de Cheste (Valencia), April 2007. 23 pp 2007.
- ↑ Hubert Müller: Moroccan Euphorbias. In: Cacti and other succulents . Volume 3, No. 2, 1952, pp. 9-11.
- ^ Susan Carter: Euphorbias of Southern Morocco. In: Cactus and Succulent Journal. Volume 77, No. 1, 2004, pp. 34-37.
- ^ W. Rauh: Vegetation studies in the High Atlas and its foreland. In: Meeting reports of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, mathematical and scientific class. Volume 1, 1952, pp. 54-56.
- ↑ P. Quezel, M. Gast: Euphorbes. In: Encyclopédie berbère. Volume 18: Escargotière - Figuig. Peeters Publishers, 1997, ISBN 2-85744-948-8 .
- ↑ Eberhard Fischer, Wolfram Lobin, Jens Mutke: Striga barthlottii (Orobanchaceae), a new parasitic species from Morocco. In: Willdenowia. Volume 41, 2011, pp. 51-56.
- ↑ Bruno Vonarburg: Homeotany: Extravagant Exotics . Haug, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8304-7029-0 , p. 270.
- ↑ Giovanni Appendino, Arpad Szallasi: Euphorbium: Modern research on its active principle, resiniferatoxin, revives an ancient medicine . In: Life Sciences . tape 60 , no. 10 , 1997, pp. 681-696 , doi : 10.1016 / S0024-3205 (96) 00567-X .
- ↑ R. Giebelmann: cultural history to milkweed plants . Institute for Forensic Medicine at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University Hospital, Greifswald 2007. (gtfch.org)
- ↑ Laurence Totelin: Botanizing rulers and their herbal subjects: plants and political power in Greek and Roman literature. In: Phoenix. Volume 66, No. 1/2, 2012, pp. 122-144.
- ↑ JM MacGregor: Plant names: some classical allusions from South African flower names. In: Journal of the Botanical Society of South Africa. Volume 60, 1974, pp. 42-48.
- ↑ Pjotr Lawant, Diny Winthagen: Euphorbia resinifera portrayed in a manuscript herbal nearly fifteen hundred years ago. In: Bradleya. 19, 2001, pp. 3-14. doi: 10.25223 / brad.n19.2001.a3
