Thursday, April 24, 2008

Spinach Tree leaves

They look like something illegal, don't they?
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi there-

I looked up the dave's garden link photo to see what your Chaya looks like and-wouldn't you know it- we are both right!!


There are more than 40 types of chaya as it turns out...they are all in the Euphorbiaceae family and belong to the Genus Cnidoscolus Pohl.

Only the ones botanically classified as chayamansa are typically edible.

There are some chayas classified as a jatropha as well, which only makes things more confusing (and their flowers look almost exactly like the red jatropha integerrima only a tad smaller).

The type I have-which I purchased at Lukas nursery- is actually a chaya that must have been collected from the wild. I know this because wild chaya has more hairy stems than the cultivated chaya and my handling of the plant without gloves is what caused me to have a painful rash.

Hope this helps! :-)

GardeningFool