In the stores of our country, you can find black or green tea with the aroma of susep - it is juicy, tasty, rich. But not all buyers know what kind of fruit it is, where it grows, what its features are. Many gardeners are probably interested to know whether it is possible to grow it at home or in greenhouse conditions. Let's sort through the points.
Sausep plant: description
In fact, the Russian name for this fruit is a soursop or prickly annon, and sousep is just a transcription of the English name soursop. This is a plant of the Annon family, an evergreen tree with a height of 7 to 9 meters. Young shoots are pubescent. The leaves are wide, fragrant, shiny, smooth, light green at the bottom and darker at the top.
They bloom in single buds with short pedicels located on branches and directly on the trunk. Outwardly resemble a cone, consist of 3 inner and 3 outer petals.
Sausep fruit is a very rare many-leafed leaf called juicy - it shows the line of fusion of the edges of the carpels, but the fruit does not open along this seam. The skin as it ripens changes color from dark green to yellowish, covered with dark spines. Inside there is a white dense pulp, reminiscent of cotton wool. By taste, the fresh fruit is similar to jelly that melts in the mouth, with sour lemonade, the taste of pineapple and strawberries. Agree, a rather unusual combination. In addition, the
fruits of this plant are the largest of its family: they reach 5-7 kg by weight, up to 15 cm in width and up to 35 cm in length. However, black seeds located randomly inside the pulp cannot be eaten - they are poisonous.
Sausep Fruit Tree Habitat
What kind of fruit is this, we figured it out. Now we find out what natural habitat is needed to grow this plant. Saucep needs a tropical climate, as its habitat in the wild and cultivated form is the Bahamas and
Bermuda, the Caribbean, Southern Mexico, Peru, Argentina. People learned to grow it in Sri Lanka, India, South China, Southeast Asia, Australia and those Pacific islands where there is a suitable climate. In our area, it is practically impossible to meet the fruits of sour cream, because they are not amenable to transportation, and its cultivation in European countries is possible only in botanical gardens.
Eating Sausep Fruit
That this is a very unusual plant, it became clear from the description. Only dried tea leaves soaked in the juice of this aromatic fruit reach Europe.
This drink is very refreshing and has a slight diuretic effect, it is used to treat and prevent kidney diseases. But in countries where sour cream grows in large quantities, it is readily used as a component of syrups, ice cream, sorbet, jelly, cakes and other desserts. Fermented juice is used to prepare a low-alcoholic drink that resembles cider, and freshly squeezed with milk and sugar is a wonderful refreshing cocktail containing sausep. That it is incredibly tasty and healthy confirms the fact of widespread use of these fruits in medicine.
Useful properties of the plant Sausep
Where the sour cream grows, it supports the health of local residents. Here are some ways to use this exotic fruit:
- Seed oil destroys lice on the head (head lice).
- Unripe fruits are crushed and treated with dysentery.
- Shredded leaves heal skin diseases, they make poultices.
- Ground and infused seeds cause vomiting.
- Ripened fruits help in the fight against overweight, normalize the functioning of the digestive tract, restore the intestinal microflora, regulate the amount of gastric juice secreted.
- Juice squeezed from fruits lowers blood pressure.
- Tonic tea drink restores the body, improves liver function.
Some scientists claim that a sour cream has anticarcinogenic properties, that is, it helps in the treatment of cancer. But research on this topic did not reveal the indicated properties. In this case, an excessive dose of the extract acts on nerve cells. Sausep is also used to improve sleep: they stuff a pillow with leaves, make a drink from them, which is consumed before bedtime. But this statement has no scientific evidence.
So, you won’t be able to grow sour cream in the Russian garden, but now you know a lot about the Sausep plant: what it is, where it grows and how it is used. At the very least, you can enjoy flavored tea, and at most you can go to tropical countries and taste the fruit itself.