Nigella damascena
Nigella ( Nigella damascena )
The Nigella ( Nigella damascena ) is an annual plant of the family Ranunculaceae ( Ranunculaceae ). Headquartered in the Mediterranean plant is a commonly cultivated garden plant in Central Europe.
- 4.1 Introduction as a garden plant
- 4.2 Use in herbal medicine and as a spice
- 5.1 symbolism
- 5.2 Literature
Name
The generic name Nigella (Latin Nigellus = black) refers to the black colored seeds. The species name damascena means " originating from Damascus " and is seen by the botanist Heinz -Dieter Krausch as evidence that it was introduced on the commercial relations of Venice with the Middle East in Central Europe.
The Nigella, which was a very common cottage garden plant earlier, carries a number of German names. These include Gretl in the perennials, Gretchen in the bush, Venus -haired bride in hair, black cumin Damascus, Damascus caraway and black cumin Garden. However, it is not related to the caraway or cumin, but belongs to the same genus as the Black Cumin ( Nigella sativa).
The name Gretl in the perennial alludes to an Austrian legend, according to which the rich farmer's daughter Gretl had to renounce her love for the Keuschlersohn Hans on his father's wish. After they ate in longing for each other, they were transformed into flowers. While Gretl was to Nigella, was the knotweed or the Common chicory, both of which bear the name Hansel on the way popularly depending on the region from Hans.
Description
Habitus and sheets
The Nigella is an annual herbaceous plant. It forms an upright, to about 45 inches high and branched stems. The leaves are pinnately divided and very much reduced.
Flowers
The flowers, which form numerous on the branched stems are surrounded by a ring -shaped hair zerschlitzter bracts. Bloom time is June to August.
The hermaphrodite flower is fünfzählig. The perianth consists of large, usually blue, but occasionally pink or white colored tepals. Internally, followed by five small, double lip honey leaves. The following are the numerous stamens. The five carpels are fused to an above cylindrical permanent and ovary, which is characterized fünffächrig. Only the pen are free.
The lack of division into sepals and petals is characteristic of many representatives of the family Ranunculaceae. There are also ornamental varieties with double flowers where honey leaves and / or stamens are converted to tepals.
Pollination
The Nigella is one of the vormännlichen plants in the first attack the stamens. With this so-called Proterandrie the plant prevent self-pollination. Mature anthers are bent down and have opened bag. An insect that receives nectar to the nectaries, is dusted on his back through the open down anthers with pollen. The style of the ovary are, however, still upright in flowers in the male stage. You writhe only during the flowering period by a movement of growth of the plant down. In the female stage of flowering, when all the dust bags are emptied, the pen are so bent far below that visiting insects to scrape the pollen brought on her back on the drooping scars of the stylus. As pollinators, especially bumblebees and bees come into question, getting to the nectar because of their long suction tubes. Hoverflies are also occasionally observed on the flowers. They only lick the pollen and play no role in the pollination.
Fruit and seeds
In pollinated flowers, the ovary develops into a fruit about three inches long capsule. With increasing maturity, the fruit walls dry out more and more until they are like parchment. Nearly Ripe capsules containing large purple stripes. Fully developed capsules, however, are light brown and open in late summer as a result of dehydration at their head, usually with five columns, each about seven millimeters long. The querrunzeligen seeds contained in the fruit capsule are colored black, as is typical for this genre.
To spread the seed, the plant uses the movement by wind or by grazing animals; it is therefore referred to as wind and animal spreader ( Semachorie ). Various design features support these propagation mechanisms. Thus, the flower stems at the time of capsule maturity are slightly longer than during the flowering period and very elastic. The blistered swollen and light capsule also serves as a porch, so that the entire plant is already moved by low winds back and forth. The capsule has bent at the tip, extended and hakige stylus that easily stick to the fur of a passing animal grazing so that the plant is pulled along and snaps back when loosening. By moving the seeds are thrown out of the narrow columns.
Ingredients
From the seeds of Nigella damascena essential oil can be recovered up to 10 percent. In this oil with a share of one-tenth contain alkaloids, especially damascenine.
The pharmacist and physician Ernst Mutschler habilitated in 1964 at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz with the subject of chemistry and pharmacology of the alkaloids damascenine and arecoline.
Dissemination
The original distribution area of Nigella is the Mediterranean; the species is accordingly present in southern Europe, Asia Minor and North Africa. Also in the Canary Islands it is native. In their natural habitat they grow on culture and the Barrens.
Through trade and sowing it arrived in the early modern period as an ornamental plant in the cottage gardens of Central Europe. Of these gardens she has run wild in a few central European locations as so-called garden refugee and then passes on to rubble - weed societies. Feral stocks are available in Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland and the Czech Republic.
As a one-year bedding and balcony plant is cultivated worldwide today.
The Nigella as livestock and garden plant
Introduction as a garden plant
The oldest known illustration is found in an Italian manuscript from the 14th century, is located in the British Museum in London. As a garden plant it was mentioned in the first half of the 16th century. The first mention in the German language comes from Hieronymus Bock 1539. Leonhart Fuchs described this method in his " New Kreüterbuch " of 1543 as " Black Coriander " and set it to the " Nigellen ". The term damascena or to arise in Damascus was in 1561 by the Zurich physician and botanist Conrad Gesner used. John Franke gave her in 1594 the name Melanthium Damascenum or " Frembder black cumin ". Carl Linnaeus reached in 1753 in his system the name damascenum as a species name on, set the style but in the genus Nigella.
In the second half of the 16th century was the plant that is very tolerant, widely used in European gardens. At the end of the 16th century there was a form with double flowers, varieties with white or pink flowers developed in the following decades. However, the blue-blooded form remained the most widely used, from the Johann Christian Gottlob Baumgarten in his Flora Lipsiensis wrote that they grow everywhere in the kitchen gardens. Especially frequently it would, however, be taken into the gardens of suburbanites and rural residents.
With the introduction farbenprächtigerer and prominent notice summer flowers that Nigella came increasingly out of fashion. In 1900, Carl August Bolle called this flower as old-fashioned. Today the plant is again popular as a typical cottage garden flower. They can be used well for bouquets because of the long shelf life. The seed capsules are suitable for dry bouquets.
Use in herbal medicine and as a spice
Nigella is used in natural medicine as a diuretic, vermifuge, expectorant and carminative. Proof of efficacy by accepted clinical studies do not yet exist.
The oil from the seeds of Nigella is used in the manufacture of perfumes and lipsticks. Finely ground seeds have an intense woodruff taste. They can be used in the kitchen for the refinement of desserts. Because of the alkaloid contained damascenine, which is toxic in overdose, a use in the kitchen, however, has fallen into disuse.
The Nigella in the symbolism and literature
Symbolism
In the symbolic language of the bridesmaid is in the open one of the classic flowers of love spurned. Young women gave spurned suitors their rejection by this flower to understand. The form in which this was done was by region. In the canton of Zurich, the sending of a Nigella was a clear signal of the rejection of an applicant. In other regions, the applicant was sent a basket in which besides the Nigella other rejection signaling flowers and herbs such as Yarrow, Cornflower, Eyebright and chicory were.