Turkmen mandrake

Turkmen mandrake
Systematics
	Asterids
	Euasterids I
Order :	Nightshade (Solanales)
Family :	Nightshade family (Solanaceae)
Genre :	Mandrake ( mandragora )
Type :	Turkmen mandrake
Scientific name
	Mandragora turcomanica
	Mizg.

The Turkmen mandrake ( Mandragora turcomanica ) is a species from the genus of the mandrake ( Mandragora ). It was first described by Olga Fominichna Mizgireva in 1942 .

description

Vegetative characteristics

The Turkmen mandrake is a perennial plant that grows crawling on the ground as a rosette up to 160 cm in diameter. The lower leaves are up to 80 cm long and 60 cm wide. Their shape is broadly elliptical to ovate. On the upper half of the leaf, the margin is usually covered with large, irregularly triangular teeth with a length of up to 2 cm. The upper leaves become smaller and are elongated ovate to broadly lanceolate in shape and usually not set with teeth. The edge of both leaf shapes is puckered. Both the top and bottom of the leaves are hardly hairy. The leaf surface is papillous wrinkled, the leaf underside is hairy very sparse along the leaf veins on young leaves this hair is seen more clearly.

blossoms

The flowers appear singly up to three in the axils of the leaves. They stand on slender, sparsely hairy (rarely only 0.5) 2 to 3 mm long flower stalks , which extend on the fruits to up to 7 to 18 cm. The calyx has a length of 15 to 20 mm and is covered with egg-shaped or triangular-lanceolate, sparsely hairy calyx tips, which are 10 to 15 mm long and 5 to 8 mm wide. They taper towards the front, when the fruit is ripe they enclose the fruit 3/4 of the length or completely. The crown is colored purple, from the base three white stripes go up the crown and reach up to its half. It becomes 20 to 25 mm long and has slightly bent back, broadly ovoid, almost blunt-ended corolla lobes that are about 15 mm long and 10 to 15 mm wide. The outside of the crown is sparsely hairy.

The stamens are about 10 mm long, the stamens 7 mm and the anthers 4 mm long. At the base of the stamens there is a thick, white hairiness. The anthers are pale blue in color. The stylus stands out over the stamens, the stigma is green in color.

Fruits and seeds

The fruits are spherical berries that can reach a diameter of up to 6 cm. Their surface is smooth, shiny and colored orange-yellow when ripe. The seeds are flat kidney-shaped, 4 to 5 mm wide, 6 to 7 mm wide and yellow or light brown in color.

ecology

The flowering time of the Turkmen mandrake extends from October to March, with some of the individuals blooming mainly in October and November, another part in February to early March. The fruit ripens until July. The plant bridges the hot summer months in a dormancy until the rains start again in autumn.

Distribution and locations

The Turkmen mandrake is native to the Kopet Dagh Mountains of Turkmenistan , but in 2002 some specimens were found in Golestan ( Iran ), where it is occasionally cultivated as a useful plant. The plant is critically endangered. For Turkmenistan fewer than 1000 copies were given in 1978, only 499 in 1994 and 50 for Iran in 2002.

The locations in Turkmenistan are on stony scree slopes in thickets of Paliurus spina-christi and along dry river courses at altitudes of around 500 to 700 m.

use

The Turkmen mandrake is used as a medicinal plant by the Turkmen population. In Iran, the use of leaves and fruits as food is known, the plant is grown there in home gardens. The strongly aromatic taste of the fruit is described as "pleasantly sour, a bit sweet, with a faint, unpleasant aftertaste of unripe tomatoes"; it gives off a "smell of melons mixed with the smell of strawberries".

proof

Main source

IA Linczevsky: Mandragora . In: BK Schischkin and EG Bobrov (eds.): Flora of the USSR: Solanaceae and Scrophulariaceae, Translated from Russian , Volume 22, Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Washington DC, USA, 1997. pp. 67-68. Publication of the original edition: Akademiya Nauk SSSR Publishers, Moscow, Leningrad, 1955.

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b Stefan Ungricht, Sandra Knapp and John R. Press: A Revision of the genus Mandragora (Solanaceae) . In: Bull. Nat. Hist. Mus. Lond. (Bot.) , Vol. 28, Number 1, June 1998, pp. 17-40.
↑ ^a ^b ^c Hossein Akhani and Abdol-Basset Ghorbani: Mandragora turcomanica (Solanaceae) in Iran: a new distribution record for an endangered species. In: Systematics and Biodiversity , Volume 1, Issue June 2, 2003. pp. 177-180. doi : 10.1017 / S1477200003001105
↑ ^a ^b I.A. Linczevsky: Mandragora . In: BK Schischkin and EG Bobrov (eds.): Flora of the USSR: Solanaceae and Scrophulariaceae, Translated from Russian , Volume 22, Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Washington DC, USA, 1997. pp. 67-68.