Cyclopia (plant)

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search

<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>

This article is about the genus of legumes. For other plants known as honeybushes, see List of plants known as honeybush.
Cyclopia
Cyclopia meyeriana KirstenboshBotGard09292010A.jpg
Cyclopia meyeriana
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Plantae
(unranked):
Angiosperms
(unranked):
Eudicots
(unranked):
Rosids
Order:
Fabales
Family:
Fabaceae
Subfamily:
Faboideae
Tribe:
Podalyrieae[1][2]
Genus:
Cyclopia
Sections and Species

See text.
Cyclopia distribution.svg
Cyclopia is endemic to South Africa.
Synonyms[4]
  • Ibbetsonia Sims

Lua error in Module:Taxonbar/candidate at line 22: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).

Cyclopia, better known by the common name Honeybush, or Heuningbos in Afrikaans, is a genus of some 20 species of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae, of the subfamily Faboideae. The description was published by Étienne Pierre Ventenat in 1808. The name Ibbetsonia, published two years later, is regarded as a synonym of this genus;[5] John Sims had commemorated the physiologist Agnes Ibbetson with this name.[5]

Cultivation and Use

The leaves of honeybush are commonly used to make herbal teas. It grows only in small areas in the southwest and southeast of South Africa and has many similarities with rooibos.

Honeybush is so named because the flowers smell of honey. The taste of honeybush tea is similar to that of rooibos but a little sweeter. In some rural districts it used to be common practice to keep a kettle of honeybush tea infusing on the stove ready for drinking while scenting the whole house — unlike tea prepared from Camellia sinensis, the product does not turn bitter with long-term simmering.

There are dozens of species of honeybush tea found in the wild, of which mainly 4 or 5 are in widespread home or commercial use. These are:[6][7][8]

Some species can be cultivated whereas others have resisted all attempts at cultivation and must be harvested in the wild. It is not always easy to discover what the seeds need to enable them to germinate; some kinds bear elaiosomes and might be dependent on the services of particular ants or birds. Cyclopia intermedia (mountain tea) is one of the teas that is harvested in the Kouga mountains where it grows naturally. Mountain tea regenerates within three years after harvesting or devastation by fire; consequently less than one third of the mountain yield is available for harvesting each year by rotation.[9]

Mountain tea and valley tea flower in September/October whereas coastal tea flowers in May/June.[10]

Tea preparation

There are two methods of processing honeybush for use in tea. In the traditional method, the leaves of the bush are harvested, cut and bruised (often with mechanical rollers), and then left in the sun to oxidise. The modern, industralised process oxidises the leaves in rotating, heated tanks at temperatures of 70–90 °C, for two to three days. The leaves are then air-dried.

Afterwards, the leaves are sifted and graded according to the application:

  • Super Fine (mostly used for string-and-tag tea bags)
  • Regular Fine (mostly used for swimming tea bags or loose tea application)
  • Coarse (mostly used for loose tea application)

Chemistry

Honeybush is low in tannin (0.45%). Some of the active compounds present in honeybush include:[11][12]

Species

Cyclopia comprises the following species:[4][13][14]

Section Aequalis

Cyclopia genistoides

Section Cyclopia

Section Marsupium

Section Praegnans

Section Truncatae

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1  Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ [1] Archived October 3, 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl1.1/record/ild-4423

External links

  • Honeybush by Subhuti Dharmananda, Ph.D., Director, Institute for Traditional Medicine, Portland, Oregon
  • Honeybush by Liesl van der Walt, South African National Biodiversity Institute. Relates mostly to coastal honeybush Cyclopia genistoides.
Retrieved from "https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=Cyclopia_(plant)&oldid=722630596"