Katemfe
| Thaumatococcus daniellii | |
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| "Ewe eran" leaves (Thaumatococcus daniellii). | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Monocots |
| Clade: | Commelinids |
| Order: | Zingiberales |
| Family: | Marantaceae |
| Genus: | |
| Species: | T. daniellii |
| Binomial name | |
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Thaumatococcus daniellii (Benn.) Benth. |
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| Synonyms | |
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Thaumatococcus daniellii is a plant species from Africa, known for being the natural source of thaumatin, an intensely sweet protein which is of interest in the development of sweeteners. When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue's taste buds, causing sour foods to taste sweet. It is a large, rhizomatous, flowering herb native to the rainforests of western Africa from Sierra Leone to Zaire. It is also an introduced species in Australia and Singapore.
Thaumatococcus daniellii grows three to four meters in height, and has large, papery leaves up to 46 centimeters long. It bears pale purple flowers and a soft fruit containing a few shiny black seeds. The fruit is covered in a fleshy red aril, which is the part that contains thaumatin. In its native range, the plant has a number of uses besides flavoring. The sturdy leaf petioles are used as tools and building materials, the leaves are used to wrap food, and the leaves and seeds have a number of traditional medicinal uses.
Common names for this species include miracle fruit (but the unrelated species Synsepalum dulcificum is better known by that name) and miracle berry; also katamfe or katempfe, Yoruba soft cane, and African serendipity berry.
A gene from Thaumatococcus daniellii has been inserted into a cucumber plant to increase its perceived sweetness in human eaters by the Warsaw University of Life Sciences.
Thaumatococcus daniellii is a rhizomatous, perennial herb, up to 3-3.5 m high. The ovate-elliptic leaves (up to 60 cm long and 40 cm wide) arise singly from each node of the rhizome. Inflorescences are single or simply branched spikes' and emerge from the lowest node. The fruit is fleshy, trigonal in shape and matures to a dark red/brown colour when fully ripe. At maturity each fruit contains three black, extremely hard seeds. The seeds are enveloped by a sticky thin, pale yellow basal aril, which contains the sweetening protein, thaumatin.
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Wikipedia