Ber and other Jujubes monograph.pdf - Crops for the Future

Z. spina-christi is a species of the Middle East through Arabia and West Africa
to N. E. Africa, Ethiopia and Eastern Africa, especially the drier tropical areas.
It is wild in the Middle East, especially Iran, Saudi Arabia and also farther west
in Turkey. Its edible fruits are gathered for food. Almost certainly it was
introduced to Africa by Arab traders along the Mediterranean coast and also via
the Horn of Africa. Its links to African homesteads were maintained because of
its value as a shade tree, its use for fruits and its many other uses (von Maydell,
1986; von Sengbusch and Dippolo, 1980). It is known to be a minor cultivated
plant in India and Pakistan and more importantly in Egypt, Syria, the Mahgreb,
Saharan oases and Zanzibar. This species is of interest because it has probably
hybridised with Z. mauritiana according to information from Pakistan,
Dahomey and Nigeria. Also it can survive with half the annual rainfall needed
by Z. jujuba and for both major cultivated species could be a source of drought
resistance. The species prefers hot tropical or subtropical climates with low to
medium rainfall and altitudes usually to 1500 m.
Z. spina-christi is the species which is thought to have been used to make the
crown of thorns for Christ. However this is not certain because Paliurus spinachristi
Mill. (syn. P. aculeatus Lam.) has also been proposed. The latter species
is very similar to the jujube but has dry fruits with a broad orbicular horizontal
wing. It is distributed in maquis, roadsides and waste places, similar to places
where Z. spina-christi is naturalised. It extends from S.E. Europe to the Levant
eastwards to the Himalayas and China. It too is a shrub, often spreading, or a
small tree to 8-10 m, spinous in the same way, but the leaves and young twigs
are glabrous (Polunin and Huxley, 1965).
1.5.2 Z. lotus (L.) Lam.
Synonyms
Z. nummularia Aubrev.
Z. saharae Blatt. & Trab.
Z. lotus (L.) Desf. subsp. saharae Maire
Z. sylvestris Mill.
Z. parviflora Del.
This species is a spiny shrub growing up to 1.5 m tall and resembling Z. jujuba.
However, fruiting branchlets are not deciduous and twigs are grey. Internodes
on branchlets are less than 1 cm long. Leaves are suborbicular or broadly
elliptic to ovate, shallowly glandular-crenate, pubescent beneath and less so
above; size (0.5-)1.2(-1.5) cm long x (0.4-)1(-1.3) cm broad.
Flowers are solitary or 2(-3) together.
Fruits are subglobose fleshy drupes about 1 cm diameter and deep yellow.
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