The well-known Central Asian deserts Karakum, Muyunkum or the African Sahara desert are associated with sand dunes, monitor lizards, snakes, scorpions, phalanges and, of course, camels. A camel, a tried and tested vehicle in the deserts, feeds on a camel thorn. This is the main pasture plant of deserts, semi-deserts and arid steppes.
A camel, this powerful and wayward animal, is surprising in its ability to get small leaves of a plant with its tongue, deftly avoiding large strong thorns, and at the same time eat enough to fill up fat in humps. And all thanks to these unprepossessing at first glance half-naked shrubs.
Camel-thorn
It is surprising in its ability to exist in a desert climate on gravelly or sandy soil not covered by soil. It is especially surprising where the plant takes water from. At the same time, it still manages to flourish and give fruit in the form of pods. It turns out that the roots of a camel spine can penetrate deep into the ground (more than three meters) and nourish an unpretentious plant with
underground water. And the camel thorn spends this water, extracted with such difficulty, not only on the formation of a bush 1 m high, covered with small leaves and large thorns, but also on cheerful flowering under the scorching sun from May to September.
Her flowers, like moths, "sit down" right on the thorns - immediately 3-5-8 pink-scarlet flowers, similar in shape to the flowers of peas or beans. And this is understandable: the camel thorn is a relative of all the legumes, it is from their family. By autumn, the plant gives out a crop of seeds from the pods. And the prickle can treat it with sweet "semolina" - sugar juice released from the leaves hardens with grains similar to semolina. From one bush, if desired, you can collect up to 2-4 g of such treats.
Chemical analyzes showed that the camel spine, which was used in folk medicine, contains useful substances such as saponins, carotene, flavonoids, sugars, vitamins C, K and group B, dyes and tannins, ursolic acid, essential oils, alkaloids in minor amounts.
The healing honey from the flowers of a camel thorn is tasty and aromatic. Not only for bees and a
camel is a camel spine, the photo of which is posted in the article. People found use for the plant: for the treatment of many diseases, leaves with a spiny stem, flowers, fruits, and even a ligneous stem along with the root are used. Infusion and a decoction of crushed stems and leaves of thorns are used as a bile and diuretic. The substances contained in the decoction of the plant turn out to be detrimental to such dangerous microbes and bacteria as streptococci and staphylococci, and the stick is disinfectant. The antiseptic properties of the
desert plant are used in the treatment of skin pustular lesions, eczema, festering wounds and ulcers in the form of washes, compresses. Rinse it with a decoction of the throat with tonsillitis, with stomatitis, rinse the oral cavity. Healing baths and washing with hemorrhoids can be healing. Decoctions of a camel thorn help with colitis, peptic ulcer, various liver diseases, with dysentery. "Manna" is given with an uncontrolled dry cough and as an antipyretic, diaphoretic in cases of colds. “Manna” is given to children as a mild laxative.
Here in a nutshell, and all about this modest, but such a generous desert plant - a camel thorn.