Carrot Pepper
| Carrot Pepper | ||||||||||||
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Carrot Pepper ( Xylopia aethiopica ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Xylopia aethiopica | ||||||||||||
| ( Dunal ) A.Rich. |
Xylopia aethiopica is a plant from the family of annonaceous (Annonaceae). It provides as negro pepper , Selimskörner , Senegal pepper , Kanipfeffer or negro pepper called fruit. The botanical genus name Xylopia is derived from the Greek words xylon for wood and pikron for bitter; the specific epithet aethiopica refers to the "Ethiopian" origin, but means the historical name of large areas of Africa and not the country of Ethiopia .
description
Vegetative characteristics
Xylopia aethiopica grows as an evergreen, slender, large, aromatic tree that reaches heights of 15 to 30, rarely up to 45 meters and trunk diameters of around 50 to over 60 cm. It forms a straight trunk, a branched tree canopy and sometimes buttress roots. The gray-brown bark is smooth or later vertically cracked and peeled off easily. The bark of the twigs is red-brown to blackish, initially with downy hairs, later smooth to more or less wrinkled. There are many noticeable lenticels .
The alternate arranged on the branches leaves consist of petiole and leaf blade. The short, 4 to 9 mm long petiole is almost bare. The simple, slightly leathery leaf blade is 8 to 16.5 cm long and 2.8 to 6.5 cm wide, ovate, lanceolate to elliptical with the entire leaf margin and rounded to pointed or tapered at the tip. The leaf surface is bluish-green, glabrous on top and finely brownish hairy to glabrous on the underside.
Inflorescence and flowers
Under the axilla, the up to 5–15 mm long stalked flowers appear singly or up to seven, bundled on a 4–10 mm long, rust-colored, pressed and downy hairy inflorescence stem. The two sloping cover sheets are reduced.
The fragrant, hermaphrodite and threefold flowers have a double flower envelope . The three small, with a length of 3 to 5 mm wide, triangular to semicircular, leathery, up to half overgrown sepals are pressed on the outside with fluffy hairy to bald, inside blackish and almost bald. There are two circles each with three greenish-white to cream-colored or yellow, free and finely hairy, leathery, spreading petals , of which the outer ones with a size of 2.5 to 6.5 × about 0.4-0.6 cm linear with a concave base and the area above it is curved, the inner ones are a little shorter and a little narrower.
The very many stamens and staminodes are elongated with a length of 1.1 to 1.7 mm. There are usually 24 to 32 (rarely up to 42) free, close-fitting, about 2–3 mm long, short and densely haired carpels . Each upper carpel contains six to eight ovules . The conically projecting stylus are about twice to three times as long as the cylindrical ovary .
In West Africa there are two flowering times per year from March to July and from October to December.
Fruits and seeds
Usually 16 to 24 (5 to 42) greenish to slightly reddish and multi-seeded, finger-shaped follicles are grouped together in a pod . The fruit stalk has a length of 7 to 12 (rarely up to 22) mm. The straight to slightly twisted follicles are elongated-cylindrical with a length of 3.5 to 8 cm and a diameter of 4 to 8 mm and somewhat constricted at the seeds. The individual fruits contain 4 to 12 single row seeds. With a length of 5 to 7 mm, the ellipsoidal seeds are glossy black to brownish with a cup-shaped, 2 to 3 mm long, orange-yellow to yellow and fleshy, bilobed aril . They lie in a reddish endocarp . The shell is aromatic, but the actual seeds are not. In West Africa, the fruits also ripen according to the flowering times from December to March and June to September.
Usage and history
In prehistoric and medieval Europe, carrot pepper was primarily a substitute for pepper . After the import of black pepper from India almost superseded the use of carrot in Europe in the course of the 16th century , it is now mainly used in Africa.
The taste is reminiscent of nutmeg and cubeb pepper , is aromatic, spicy and slightly bitter . The seeds are hardly any flavor-giving, mainly the "pods" give the taste.
In addition to carrot ( Xylopia aethiopica ), striped carrot ( Xylopia striata ) is also used in local cuisine. In South America, the related burro pepper ( Xylopia aromatica ) has found similar uses among the Brazilian Indians.
Occurrence
Xylopia aethiopica is native to tropical Africa from Sudan via Tanzania , Uganda , Cameroon , the Central African Republic , Gabon , São Tomé and Príncipe , Zaire , Benin , Burkina Faso , Ivory Coast , Gambia , Ghana , Guinea , Guinea-Bissau , Liberia , Nigeria , Senegal , Sierra Leone , Togo , Zambia to Angola and Mozambique , but not Ethiopia.
Xylopia aethiopica thrives naturally in the lowland rainforests and wooded areas in the savannah zones of Africa and is often found in western, central and southern Africa. This species is widespread in the humid forest areas and along the rivers in the drier areas. Xylopia aethiopica finds good conditions at altitudes between 200 and 500 meters with annual average temperatures between 20 and 31 ° C and annual rainfall between 1500 and 2500 mm.
Systematics
This species was first described in 1817 as Unona aethiopica by Michel Félix Dunal in Monographie de la famille des Anonacées , p. 113. Achille Richard placed it in Historia Fisica Politica y Natural de la Isla de Cuba, Botanica , 1, p. 53 in the genus Xylopia in 1845 . Other synonyms for Xylopia aethiopica (Dunal) A.Rich. are: Habzelia aethiopica DC., Uvaria aethiopica A.Rich., Xylopia dekeyzeriana De Wild., Xylopia eminii Engl., Xylopia gilletii De Wild., Xylopicrum aethiopicum Kuntze.
literature
- David M. Johnson, Nancy A. Murray: A revision of Xylopia L. (Annonaceae): the species of Tropical Africa. In: PhytoKeys. 97, 2018, pp. 1–252, doi: 10.3897 / phytokeys.97.20975 .
- Quentin Meunier, Carl Moumbogou, Jean-Louis Doucet: Les arbres utiles du Gabon. Presses Agronomiques de Gembloux, 2015, ISBN 978-2-87016-134-0 , p. 86 f, limited preview in the Google book search.
- C. Orwa, A. Mutua, R. Kindt, R. Jamnadass & A. Simons: Xylopia aethiopica , Annonaceae (PDF; 256 kB) at Agroforestree Database: a tree reference and selection guide, 2009 (section description and introduction).
- NKB Robson: Annonaceae , In: Flora Zambesiaca , Volume 1, 1960: online (section description).
Web links
- Xylopia aethiopica at Useful Tropical Plants.
- Xylopia aethiopica . In: S. Dressler, M. Schmidt, G. Zizka (Eds.): African plants - A Photo Guide. Senckenberg, Frankfurt / Main 2014.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Mohrenpfeffer Gernot Katzers spice pages
- ↑ Entry at GRIN. ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Adjima Thiombiano, Marco Schmidt, Stefan Dressler, Amadé Ouédraogo, Karen Hahn, Georg Zizka: Catalog des Plantes vasculaires du Burkina Faso . In: Boissiera . 65, 2012, pp. 1–391.
- ^ Xylopia aethiopica at Tropicos.org. Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis.
