Unicorn Plants: Potential Permaculture Vegetables that MOVE?!
Proboscidea parviflora; Proboscidea louisianica
Aliases: devil’s claw, doubleclaw, aphid trap, cat’s claw, martynia. (Sp.) una de gato, cuernitos del dia.
Family : Martyniaceae
Martyniaceae Characteristics: members tend to have opposite leaves, and glandular/non-glandular hairs attached to all above ground components of the plant. [1] There are only 4 genera and 12–15 species in the Martyniaceae family.
Binomial Etymology (Proboscidea parviflora): Probosc- means “that which examines;” -idea is presumed to be a generic suffix; parvi- means small while -flora denotes a flower. [2] Proboscidea is derived from the Greek word, proboskis, which was used as a reference to the long curved protrusion at the end of the fruits of the unicorn plant.
Binomial Pronunciation: Pro-BAHS-kah-dee-ahh~Parv-eh-floor-ah
USDA Classification: Native
Introduction
“The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature . . . is astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror.” Edmund Burke from A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful.
Greetings! This is a preliminary research article on a species PUYP will be growing in the 2018 season. Stay tuned for series dealing with the growth of plants in these winter articles.
Proboscidea spp are grown for their ornamental flowers and tasty pepper-shaped fruits, but I found that they are underutilized for many more amazing attributes and special powers.
- Their sticky glandular hairs trap and kill leaf-eating insects, potentially making them an excellent trap crop.
- Their native habitat is the dry desert southwest so there is no need for extra watering.
- They have edible seeds that supposedly taste like coconut and yield a quality cooking oil.
- Their sticky leaves are reportedly great for removing lice from domestic fowl.
- These proto-carnivorous plants MOVE. I mean, they PHYSICALLY MOVE (*ASTONISHED).
Since this is a relatively obscure new world plant, unusually little information on unicorn plants shows up in the annals of natural history, that is, beyond data listing seeds and pods of Proboscidea spp. showing up in ancient archeological dig sites in the American southwest. While the prospect of gaining empirical knowledge of this plant is exciting, knowing that they will be writhing — to some degree — is a strangely new and slightly unsettling scenario.
Description
This native annual plant has a notorious smell and a prostrate growth habit; all above-ground parts are covered in glandular hairs. The hairy leaves are heart-shaped to kidney shaped and sticky. The flowers are funnel shaped, five petaled, and showy. The flowers bloom from August to October.The fruits can be around seven inches long and green when underripe and much like a pepper with a hook on the end. When ripe, the fruit turns black, dries and splits.[3] The stigma is two-lipped and moves (closes) when touched.
Habitat
P. parviflora usually occurs in flat gravely-to-rocky areas of the American Southwest.
Culinary Uses
The pepper-shaped fruits are said to be mucilaginous (okra-like) and lend themselves quite well toward thickening soups and pickling. The seeds were also eaten after cracking them open like piñon nuts. The seed oil has been scientifically evaluated as a frying oil and, apparently, the seeds have a coconut-like flavor. [5]
Folk Remedies
P. parviflora was considered a topical pain reliever to treat rheumatoid arthritis by the Pima [4]. The fruit of closely related species in Mexico are apparently are cut and boiled as a tea to treat headaches.
Miscellaneous
The Pima people used the black seed pods extensively in basket weaving and for creating a black dye. [4] The sticky leaves may be used to remove lice from your chickens [5].
Freakish Factoids:
The stigma is two-lipped and apparently closes like a venus fly trap (thigmatropic) when touched by a bee in an effort to trap pollen. YES, that is right; this flower moves. If the flower is not fertilized, the stigma will open again. This is a characteristic that can be demonstrated in your garden. I am willing to bet this closing motion helps the plant to avoid selfing as, say, a bee’s “back fur” would rub on this stigma and the stigma would quickly close before the bee recieved any pollen from the flower. You can see in the below video that the anthers are behind the stigma on the flower.
Works Cited
[2] Borror, D. J. (1971). Dictionary of word roots and combining forms. Place of publication not identified: Mayfield Publishing Co.
[3] Whitson, T. D. (2012). Weeds of the West. Las Cruces, NM: Western Society of Weed Science in cooperation with the Western United States Land Grant Universities Cooperative Extension Services and the University of Wyoming.
[4] Moerman, D. E. (2010). Native American ethnobotany. Portland, Or.: Timber Press.
[5]Bretting, P. (1984). Folk Names and Uses for Martyniaceous Plants. Economic Botany, 38(4), 452–463. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4254686
