Welcome to "Walking Through the Trees," a note I take on walking among the trees. Grass and wood heart, country taste, fine taste, rambling!
Wen 丨 Heart Beads Long Typesetting 丨 Heart Beads Long
I saw "sour berries" in the supermarket two days ago, in a white basket, the fruit is yellow, wrapped in a lantern-shaped calyx, the color of the calyx is like yellow, thin paper.
Sour pulp is also known as red girl, lantern fruit, brocade lantern, wild herb fruit for both medicine and food, high nutritional value, native to mainland China and South America, currently cultivated in northeast or part of northern China.
Let's talk about this plant today!
01
Sour berry species
There are 2 kinds of sour berries common in the market, one is (ripe) the fruit is yellow and yellow, and the calyx is also yellow; One is that the fruit and calyx are red.
Among them, red is a native plant of the mainland, which is a relatively authentic "red girl", and in the northeast region of the mainland, there are more wild resources of red girls.
And the yellow sour pulp, native to Central and South America, is also known as the French yellow fruit sour pulp. This kind of sour berry, which is more popular in cultivation, was introduced to the mainland around the Ming Dynasty, and later gradually became a wild plant.
Compared with the two kinds of sour pulp, the yellow fruit sour berry is larger, the yield is higher, and the taste is relatively better. Yellow fruit sour pulp is sweet, while red fruit sour pulp is sour.
02
Sour pulp is a perennial herb of the nightshade family, the plant is relatively erect, 30-60 cm tall. The flowers are white and axillary. The flowering period is short, about a week. Leaves are raw.
The fruit is berry, round. The layer that wraps the fruit outside is its calyx, the whole fruit, like a small lantern.
Its calyx, high ornamental value, read in an article before, its calyx is easy to rot, leaving a net, like leaf veins like a "shelf", the whole fruit, more like a lantern.
Image source: Museum
03
The edible value of sour pulp
Sour pulp, rich in vitamin C, citric acid, sour berry and other nutrients, sweet and sour, can be eaten fresh, but also processed into juice.
But in fact, the edible part of this relatively ancient fruit, in addition to the fruit, is its leaves.
In the Ming Dynasty plant monograph "Rescue the Desert Materia Medica", it is written that although its leaves are slightly bitter, they can be eaten as a wilderness remedy.
Girl dish: common name lantern, also known as hanging golden lamp, herbal name sour pulp.
In the pastoral garden of Jing Chu Chuanze and people, there are everywhere today, the seedlings are more than a foot tall, the seedlings are like water tomatoes, and the small ones, the leaves are like sky tomatoes. Blossom white flowers. The knot is like a sac, like a wild watermelon capsule, shaped like a pinch cloth bag; It's like a lantern. There are solids in the sac, such as cherry large, reddish yellow, sour, flat, cold, non-toxic. The leaf taste is slightly bitter.
Hunger relief: vegetable leaves are cooked, water soaked to wash away bitterness, oil smoke seasoning. Ripe and eaten.
- "Saving the Desert Materia Medica"
04
It is a medicinal herb
The dried calyx or plain calyx of the ripe fruit of the sour pulp can be used medicinally.
Its medicinal parts are: ripe dry calyx or fruited calyx. The 2020 edition of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia is included in the title: Brocade Lantern.
This plant is adaptable and quite beautiful, and you can also consider cultivating one or two plants on the balcony, but looking at the fruit, the mood will also be very comfortable.
About the author
Heart Pearl: Intermediate agronomist, plant lover.