Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
Scorzonera judaica
Species of flowering plant in the Scorzonera family Asteraceae From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
Scorzonera judaica, commonly called Jordanian viper's grass,[1] Judean viper's grass,[1] or what was earlier known as salsify,[5] is a species of geophyte of the family Asteraceae. It is native to the eastern Mediterranean as far as Afghanistan.
Remove ads
Description
Scorzonera judaica is a perennial herbaceous plant with a cylindrical rhizome ending in a globose tuber.[6][7] It bears a yellow inflorescence which, in Israel, blossoms between January and April. The petals are connate and tongue-shaped.
The plant lacks an inflorescence stem, and its flowers grow on long spikes (8–10 cm) that grow out of a rosette of elongated leaves.[8] The rosette of leaves grows immediately following the first rains.[8] The leaves are elongated, glossy and narrow, and covered with long white hairs that resemble spider webs (also the flower spikes and the involucral bracts of the inflorescence are covered with hairs).[8]
What is special about the plant are actually its seeds, which are hairy all over their surface and have a feathery tuft.[8] Upon ripening, the seeds disperse at once in the wind, and look like cotton balls dancing in the wind.[8][9]
Remove ads
Distribution
Scorzonera judaica has a broad geographical area, stretching from the sub-desert and steppe regions of the western part of the Irano-Turanian Region: Anatolia, Transcaucasus, Syria, Israel, Jordan, northern Egypt, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.[6] It is the only species of its genus that thrives in desert regions, with all other similar species growing in high mountainous elevations in the Middle East and in Asia.[8] In Israel, it typically grows on the slopes of the Judean Desert and in the northern Negev.[9]
Remove ads
Uses
The taproots of this herb are edible and eaten raw when young, but when the plant grows older they require either cooking or roasting before they can be eaten.[8][10] The vegetable root (salsify) is harvested in the autumn of the first or second year. The roots, once dug up, were thoroughly rinsed, cut into sections and boiled in salt water for a few minutes, before being sautéed in a frying pan with a dash of olive oil.[citation needed] A palatable soup can be made from 20 roasted corms, flavored with spring onions, olive oil and a dash of salt.[11]
Scorzonera judaica is one of eighteen species of geophytes and hemicryptophytes that were found to be consumed by porcupines in the Negev Desert highlands.[12]
References
Additional reading
External links
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads