Golden - Drop

Golden - Drop / Podonosma orientalis / مصيص

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Status: Uncommon

Podonosma orientalis is chamaephyte plant, the genus of this plant contains biennial or perennial herbs, it belongs to Boraginaceae.The stem is rouns, hispid and the leaves are alternate, sessile, entire, hispid, with green or whitish hairs. The flowers are on stalks; Corolla cylindrical, acute; yellow, light blue, White, in a terminal double cluster. Flowering periods February to June. The fruits are pendulous, seeds 4, erect, ovate-triangular. The genus of this plant includes about 150 species distributed world-wide in which only about 75 plants. This plant is native to the Mediterranean and western Asia and includes numerous species distributed in Asia, Eurasia, Mediterranean regions and Europe mainly in Iran, Syria, Turkey, China, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka, etc.

Ecology:

This plant grows in dry, sunny habitats with rocky, sandy substrates and Some are popular as rock garden plants. It belongs to the Med - Irano-Turanian chorotype.

Medicinal uses: -

The phytochemical reports of this genus revels that it comprises mainly aliphatic ketones, lipids, naphthazarins, alkaloids, phenolic compounds, naphthoquinones, flavones while most important are shikonins and onosmins. Some species of Podonosma are used in traditional medicine as against burns, wounds, ailments, laxative, anthelmintic and for alexipharmic effects. The flowers of various plants are prescribed as stimulants, cardiotonic, in body swelling while leaves are used as purgative and in cutaneous eruptions. The roots are used for coloring food stuffs, oils and dying wool in medicinal preparations.

Distributions in Palestine: -

Mediterranean Woodlands and Shrublands, Semi-steppe shrublands, Shrub-steppes, Deserts and extreme deserts.

IUCN red list status: not evaluated

Local status: least concern