In the stores of our country you can find black or green tea with the aroma of soursepa - it is juicy, tasty, rich. But not all buyers know what kind of fruit it is, where it grows, what are its features. Many gardeners are probably wondering if it can be grown indoors or in a greenhouse. Let's go point by point.
Sausep plant: description
In fact, the Russian name for this fruit is soursop or prickly annona, and "sausep" 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 broad, fragrant, shiny, smooth, light green below and darker above.
They bloom in single buds with short pedicels located on the branches and right on the trunk. Outwardly, they resemble a cone, consist of 3 inner and 3 outer petals. The sausep fruit is a very rare multi-leaf, called juicy - it shows a line of fusion of the edges of the carpels, but the fruit does not open along this seam. The skin changes as it matures.color from dark green to yellowish, covered with dark spines. Inside is a white dense pulp, resembling cotton wool. The taste of fresh fruit is similar to jelly that melts in your mouth, with lemonade sourness, pineapple and strawberry flavors. Agree, quite an unusual combination. In addition, the fruits of this plant are the largest of their family: they reach 5-7 kg in 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 will find out what kind of natural habitat is needed to grow this plant. Saucep needs a tropical climate, since its habitat in wild and cultivated form is the Bahamas and Bermuda, the Caribbean, Southern Mexico, Peru, Argentina. People have 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 almost impossible to meet the fruits of soursop apple, because they cannot be transported, and its cultivation in European countries is possible only in botanical gardens.
Eating soursop fruits
That this is a very unusual plant, it became clear from the description. Only dried tea leaves soaked in the juice of this fragrant fruit reach Europe.
This drink is very refreshing and has a slight diuretic effect,used for the treatment and prevention of kidney disease. But in countries where soursop grows in mass quantities, it is readily used as a component of syrups, ice cream, sherbet, jelly, cakes and other desserts. The fermented juice is used to make a low-alcohol drink resembling cider, and freshly squeezed with milk and sugar is a wonderful refreshing cocktail containing soursep. That it is incredibly tasty and he althy confirms the fact that these fruits are widely used in medicine.
Useful properties of the sausep plant
Where the soursop grows, it maintains the he alth of the locals. Here are some ways to use this exotic fruit:
- Seed oil kills head lice (pediculosis).
- Unripe fruits are crushed and treated with dysentery.
- Crushed leaves heal skin diseases, make poultices.
- Crushed and infused seeds cause vomiting.
- Ripe fruits help in the fight against excess weight, normalize the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract, restore intestinal microflora, regulate the amount of gastric juice secreted.
- Juice squeezed from fruit lowers blood pressure.
- Tonic tea drink restores the body, improves liver function.
Some scientists claim that soursop has anticarcinogenic properties, that is, it helps in the treatment of cancer. But studies on this topic have not revealed the indicated properties. At the same time, an excessive dose of the extract acts onnerve cells. Sausep is also used to improve sleep: they stuff a pillow with leaves, make a drink out of them, which is consumed before bedtime. But even this claim has no scientific evidence.
So, growing a soursop in a Russian garden will not work, but now you know a lot about the soursep plant: what it is, where it grows and how it is used. At the very least, you can enjoy flavored tea, and for the most part, you can go to tropical countries and taste the fruit itself.
