Plantago ovata
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Plantago ovata var. Fastigiata |
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| Forssk. |
Plantago ovata is a species of plantain oak ( Plantago ). It is native to the desert areas of North Africa and Southwest Asia. The seeds of the plants are sold under the name Indian flea seeds or psyllium husks as food and for medicinal purposes and are mainly cultivated in India and Pakistan for this purpose.
description
Plantago ovata is an annual (sometimes perennial) herbaceous plant with a height of 2 to 10 centimeters. The linear (rarely linear-lanceolate) leaves are in a base rosette and are 2 to 10 centimeters long and 1 to 5, with a good water supply up to 10 millimeters wide. They are pointed, serrated at the edge or usually entire, single-nerved and densely covered with close-fitting, woolly hair up to 5 millimeters long.
The ascending shafts are hardly longer than the leaves, not furrowed and densely stiff-haired-woolly with 1 (to 2) millimeter long hairs. The flowers are in dense, egg-shaped, 0.5 to 2 (rarely 3.5) centimeter long spikes . The bracts are 3 millimeters long, egg-shaped to circular, with a central rib protruding at the tip and wide skin margins. The sepals are 2 to 2.5 millimeters long, almost the same size, only fused at the base, rounded and almost flat. They have an emerging median nerve and wide, symmetrical skin margins. The corolla tube is (1.5 to) 2.5 to 3.5 millimeters long and bald. The corolla lobes are about 2.5 millimeters long, broadly ovate to rounded and pointed at the tip blunt to very short.
The capsule fruits are elliptical, 2.5 to 3 millimeters long and hairless. They each contain two 2 to 2.5 millimeters large, egg-shaped to oblong-round, boat-shaped, yellow to brown seeds.
Plantago ovata flowers after rainfall, mostly from January to April. Depending on the water supply, this plantain is very variable in size, leaf shape and hairiness.
The number of chromosomes is 2n = 8, rarely 16.
distribution
Plantago ovata is a Saharo-Sindic floral element. The natural distribution area extends from the Canary Islands and Madeira over southeast Spain , North Africa , Cyprus , the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula to Afghanistan , Pakistan and India . The occurrences in the New World in areas with a corresponding climate in the southern USA ( California , Nevada , Utah , Arizona , Texas ), in Mexico ( Baja California ) are often considered to be a younger naturalization, but are based on an immigration in the Pleistocene, according to molecular genetic studies 200,000 to 650,000 years ago. The species is naturalized in Central, East and South Asia and in Australia.
Plantago ovata occurs in wadis and other places with temporary water accumulation, on fallow land and grazed annulus meadows on nitrified soils.
Systematics
Plantago ovata was first described by Peter Forsskål in 1775 . It can be divided into four varieties:
- Plantago ovata Forssk. var. ovata , represents the species in North Africa. The corolla lobes have a length / width ratio of only 0.9 to 1.3.
- Plantago ovata var. Decumbens (Forssk.) Zohary , occurs in the Middle East. As with the North American varieties, the length / width ratio of the corolla lobes is (1.2 to) 1.3 to 1.7. The hairiness of the bracts is shorter than a third of the bract length.
- Plantago ovata var. Fastigiata (Morris) S. Meyers & A. Liston , grows in the desert areas of North America. The hairiness of the bracts is longer than a third of the bract length in the two North American varieties. The corolla lobes have no reddish-brown central rib. The midrib of the bracts of the flowers is green.
- Plantago ovata var. Insularis (Eastwood) S. Meyers & A. Liston , is widespread on the Pacific coast of North America and on the Californian and Mexican Channel Islands . The corolla lobes usually have a strong reddish-brown central rib. The midrib of the bracts of the flowers is brown.
use
Food
The seed husks are used as a high-fiber food, for example in fruit juices as mucus and in cereal bars as a satiety agent . They are also used as binders to produce gluten-free baked goods such as pizza or muffins.
drug
Main article: Psyllium husks
There are various non-prescription products approved as medicinal products on the market, which are used to treat constipation due to their good swelling properties. They have a laxative effect (by swelling with an increase in volume and pressure on the myenteric plexus of the colon), but also counteract diarrhea , as the binding of water leads to the stool thickening.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g J. Pedrol: Plantago . In: Santiago Castroviejo, C. Benedí i González, Enrique Rico Hernández, J. Guemes, A. Herrero (eds.): Flora Ibérica. Plantas Vasculares de la Península Ibérica e Islas Baleares. Vol. XIII. Plantaginaceae - Scrophulariaceae . Real Jardín Botánico, CSIC, Madrid 2009, ISBN 978-84-00-08747-0 , p. 4–38 ( PDF file; 2.4 MB ).
- ↑ SMA Kazmi: Flora of West Pakistan . 62: Plantaginaceae . Stewart Herbarium, Gordon College u. a., Rawalpindi 1974, p. 14 ( online ).
- ↑ Naomi Feinbrun-Dothan (Ed.): Flora Palaestina . Part 3: Ericaceae to Compositae. Text and chalkboard. Academy of Sciences and Letters, Jerusalem 1978, ISBN 965-208-003-9 , pp. 226 .
- ↑ a b Sven Snogerup, Loutfy Boulos: Plantaginaceae . In: Loutfy Boulos (ed.): Flora of Egypt . Volume 3: Verbenaceae - Compositae . Al Hadara Publishing, Cairo 2003, ISBN 977-5429-25-0 , pp. 108-120 .
- ↑ Plantago ovata at Tropicos.org. In: IPCN Chromosome Reports . Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis
- ↑ Werner Greuter, Hervé-Maurice Burdet, Guy Long (eds.): Med-Checklist. A critical inventory of vascular plants of the circum-Mediterranean countries . Vol. 4: Dicotyledones (Lauraceae - Rhamnaceae) . Conservatoire et Jardin Botanique, Genève 1989, ISBN 2-8277-0154-5 ( online ).
- ↑ James C. Hickman (Ed.): The Jepson Manual. Higher Plants of California . University of California Press, Berkeley, Calif 1993, ISBN 0-520-08255-9 ( online ).
- ↑ a b c d e f Stephen C. Meyers, Aaron Liston: The biogeography of Plantago ovata Forssk. (Plantaginaceae). In: International Journal of Plant Sciences. Volume 169, No. 7, 2008, pp. 954-962. doi: 10.1086 / 589699
- ↑ Hongbin Cui, Zhenyu Li, Lai Wei, Ronald K. Hoggard: Plantaginaceae. In: Wu Zheng-yi, Peter H. Raven, Deyuan Hong (Eds.): Flora of China . Volume 19: Cucurbitaceae through Valerianaceae, with Annonaceae and Berberidaceae . Science Press / Missouri Botanical Garden Press, Beijing / St. Louis 2011, ISBN 978-1-935641-04-9 , pp. 502 (English, online - PDF file ).
- ↑ Peter Forsskål : Flora Aegyptiaco-Arabica: sive descriptiones plantarum quas per Aegyptum inferiorem et Arabiam felicem. Möller, Copenhagen 1775, p. 31 ( digitized version ).
- ↑ Max Wichtl : Tea drugs and phytopharmaceuticals: A manual for practice on a scientific basis. Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-8047-2369-6 .
