Ziziphus oenoplia | |
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Ziziphus oenoplia | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
(unranked): | Angiosperms |
(unranked): | Eudicots |
(unranked): | Rosids |
Order: | Rosales |
Family: | Rhamnaceae |
Genus: | Ziziphus |
Species: | Z. oenoplia |
Binomial name | |
Ziziphus oenoplia (L.) Mill. |
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Synonyms | |
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Ziziphus oenoplia, commonly known as the jackal jujube, small-fruited jujube or wild jujube, is a flowering plant with a broad distribution through tropical and subtropical Asia and Australasia.
It is a spreading, sometimes climbing, thorny shrub growing to 1.5 m in height. The leaves are simple, alternate, ovate-lanceolate, acute and oblique. The flowers are green, in subsessile axillary cymes. The fruit is a globose drupe, black and shiny when ripe, containing a single seed.
It ranges from the Indian subcontinent through southern China and Southeast Asia to northern Australia. It grows along roadside forests and thickets.
The berries are edible and the bark is used for tanning.
The plant produces cyclopeptide alkaloids known as ziziphines and has a long history of use as an herbal medicine. In India the root is used in Ayurvedic medicine. The Konkani people of Maharashtra use the chewed leaves as a dressing for wounds. In Burma the stem bark is used as a mouthwash for sore throats, for dysentery, and for inflammation of the uterus. Research in Thailand has found that extracts of ziziphine from Ziziphus oenoplia var. brunoniana show antiplasmodial in vitro activity against the malarial parasite Plasmodium falciparum.