Jungfer in the green
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Maiden in the Green ( Nigella damascena ) |
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The maiden in the green ( Nigella damascena ) is an annual plant from the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae). The plant native to the Mediterranean area is a garden plant that is often cultivated in Central Europe.
Names
The generic name Nigella ( Lat. Nigellus = black) refers to the black colored seeds. The species name damascena translates as "coming from Damascus" and is seen by the botanist Heinz-Dieter Krausch as evidence that it was introduced into Central Europe through trade relations between Venice and the Middle East .
The maiden in the green, which used to be a common cottage garden plant, bears a number of German names. These include Gretl in perennials , Gretchen in the bush , Venus haired , Bride hair , Damascus Nigella , Damascus cumin and garden Nigella . However, it is not related to caraway or cumin , but belongs to the same genus as black cumin ( Nigella sativa ).
The name Gretl in der Stauden alludes to an Austrian legend according to which the rich farmer's daughter Gretl had to renounce her love for the chaste son Hans at the father's request. After they were consumed with longing for one another, they were turned into flowers. While Gretl became a maiden in the countryside, depending on the region, Hans became the bird knotweed or the common Wegwarte , both of which are popularly known as Hansl am Weg .
description
Habit and leaves
The maiden in the green is an annual herbaceous plant . It forms an upright, branched stem up to 45 centimeters high . The leaves are pinnate and very much reduced.
blossoms
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The flowers, which are numerous on the branched stems, are surrounded by a wreath of hair-like, split bracts . Flowering time is June to August.
The hermaphrodite flower is fivefold. The perigone consists of large, mostly blue, but occasionally also pink or white colored tepals . Five small, two-lipped honey leaves follow inside . The numerous stamens follow . The five carpels are a permanent and upper cylindrical ovary adherent, which thereby is fünffächrig. Only the stylus are free.
The lack of division into sepals and petals is characteristic of many representatives of the buttercup family . There are also ornamental varieties with double flowers, in which honey leaves and / or stamens are converted to perigone leaves .
pollination
The maiden in the green is one of the pre-male plants in which the stamens ripen first. With this so-called proterandry , the plant prevents self-pollination. Mature anthers are bent down and have opened bags. An insect that picks up nectar from the nectaries is dusted with pollen on its back through the downwardly opened anthers. The stylus of the ovary are in flowering stage in the male, however still upright. They curve downwards only during the flowering period due to a growth movement of the plant. In the female stage of flowering, when all the anthers have been emptied, the styles are bent down so far that visiting insects smear the pollen brought on their backs onto the hanging stigmas of the style. Bumblebees and bees come into question as pollinating insects, as they get to the nectar due to their long suction tubes. Hoverflies can occasionally also be observed on the flowers. They just lick off the pollen and play no role in pollination.
Fruit and seeds
In the case of pollinated flowers, the ovary develops into a capsule fruit about three centimeters long . With increasing ripeness, the fruit walls dry out more and more until they are parchment-like. Almost ripe capsules have broad, purple vertical stripes. Fully mature capsules, on the other hand, are light brownish and open in late summer as a result of the dehydration at their tip with usually five crevices, each about seven millimeters long. The wrinkled seeds contained in the fruit capsule are colored black, as is typical for this genus.
To spread the seeds, the plant uses the movement caused by the wind or by passing animals; it is therefore called wind and animal spreader ( semachory ). Various design features support these propagation mechanisms. The flower stalks are slightly longer when the capsule is ripe than during the flowering period and are very elastic. The blisteringly distended and light capsule serves as a wind catcher, so that the entire plant is already moved back and forth by a weak wind. The capsule has kinked, elongated and hooked styluses at its tip, which easily get caught in the fur of a passing animal so that the plant is pulled along and snaps back when it is loosened. The movement throws the seeds out of the narrow crevices.
Chromosomes
The number of chromosomes is 2n = 12.
ingredients
Up to 10 percent essential oil can be obtained from the seeds of the maiden in the green . This oil contains a tenth of alkaloids , especially damascenin .
Ernst Mutschler (doctor) completed his habilitation in 1964 at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz on the subject of chemistry and pharmacology of the alkaloids damascenine and arecoline .
distribution
The original range of the maiden in the green is the Mediterranean area; the species occurs accordingly in southern Europe , Asia Minor and North Africa . It is also native to the Canary Islands . In its natural range, it grows on cultivated and wasteland .
Through trade and sowing, it found its way into the cottage gardens of Central Europe as an ornamental plant in the early modern period . From these gardens it has run wild in a few central European locations as a so-called garden refugee and then appears in rubble-weed communities. There are feral stocks in Austria , Switzerland , Belgium , the Netherlands , Poland , Germany and the Czech Republic .
As an annual bedding and balcony plant, it is now cultivated worldwide.
The maiden in the countryside as a useful and garden plant
Introduction as a garden plant
The oldest known illustration is in a 14th century Italian manuscript now in the British Museum in London . It was mentioned as a garden plant in the first half of the 16th century. The first mention in the German-speaking area comes from Hieronymus Bock in 1539. Leonhart Fuchs referred to the species in his “New Kreüterbuch” from 1543 as “Black Coriander” and placed it among the “Nigellen”. The name damascena or originating from Damascus was used by the Zurich doctor and botanist Conrad Gessner in 1561 . Johannes Franke gave it the name Melanthium Damascenum or “Frembder Black Cumin” in 1594. In 1753, Carl von Linné took up the designation damascenum as a species name in his systematics , but placed the species in the genus Nigella .
In the second half of the 16th century, the plant, which is very frugal, was widespread in German gardens. Already at the end of the 16th century there was a form with double flowers, the varieties with white or pink flowers developed in the decades that followed. However, the blue-flowered form remained the most widespread, of which Johann Christian Gottlob Baumgarten wrote in his Flora Lipsiensis that it grows everywhere in the kitchen gardens. However, it is particularly often grown in the gardens of the suburbs and the rural population.
With the introduction of more colorful and eye-catching summer flowers, the maiden in the green increasingly went out of fashion. In 1900 Carl August Bolle described this flower as old-fashioned. Today the plant is popular again as a typical cottage garden flower. It can be used for bouquets because of its long shelf life. The seed pods are suitable for dry bouquets.
Use in herbal medicine and as a spice
Jungfer im Grünen is used in naturopathy as a diuretic, worming, expectorant and against flatulence. There are currently no recognized clinical studies as proof of effectiveness.
The oil from the seeds of the maiden in the green is used to make perfumes and lipsticks. Finely ground seeds have an intense woodruff flavor . They can be used to refine desserts. However, due to the alkaloid damascenin they contain , they have become uncommon in the kitchen, as a higher dose is toxic.
The maiden in the green in symbolism and literature
symbolism
In the symbolic language, the maiden in the green is one of the classic flowers of spurned love. Young women used this flower to show spurned suitors their rejection. The form in which this happened varied from region to region. In the canton of Zurich , the sending of a maiden in the countryside was a clear signal that an applicant was rejected. In other regions, the applicant was sent a basket in which, in addition to the maiden in the green, other flowers and herbs signaling rejection such as yarrow , cornflower , eyebright and chicory were found.
literature
In literature, the maiden in the green does not play a major role. However, the poet Johannes Trojan (1837 to 1915) dedicated a poem to her with the title Bride in Hair , which also reflects the fact that this plant was perceived as out of fashion at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The last three stanzas of this poem are:
- Whether she is beautiful to the face,
- It is not an elegant flower.
- She is banned from the rich gardens
- And from the cities to the countryside
- The flower bride in hair
- In the cottage garden on the bed
- Where there is burning love and diamond
- She's still a pleasure to see
- As a wanderer I often see them standing there,
- The flower bride in hair
- Then I go to the garden fence
- To look into her face.
- We both love you and you
- She looks at me and I nod at her:
- Good morning, bride in hair
See also
literature
- Carl Bolle : Old-fashioned flowers. In: Brandenburgia. Stankiewicz, Berlin 8.1899 / 1900, pp. 185-204.
- Heinz-Dieter Krausch : Imperial crown and red peonies ...: Discovery and introduction of our garden flowers. Dölling and Galitz, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-935549-23-7
- Angelika Lüttig, Juliane Kasten: Rose hip & Co: flowers, fruits and spread of European plants. Fauna Verlag, Nottuln 2003, ISBN 3-935980-90-6
- Johanne Philippine Nathusius : The world of flowers according to their German name, meaning and interpretation, arranged in pictures. Leipzig 1869, p. 76.
- Gertrud Scherf: Plant secrets from ancient times: Traditional knowledge from monastery, castle and farm gardens. blv Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-405-16678-0
Individual evidence
- ^ Erich Oberdorfer : Plant-sociological excursion flora for Germany and neighboring areas . 8th edition. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8001-3131-5 . Page 397.
Web links
- Thomas Meyer: Data sheet with identification key and photos at Flora-de: Flora von Deutschland (old name of the website: Flowers in Swabia )
- On the toxicity of Damascus black cumin
- Images of the maiden in the green
