Crataegus mexicana – Heart Plant, Mexican Punch, Tejocote, Hawthorn Berry, Small Mexican Apple

Description

Little tree or shrubs of great longevity, being living for more than 500 years, originating in regions of tempered, tropical and hot climates, generally found to the margins of roads, fields and forests, prospering in most soils, including alkaline.

Crataegus mexicana or tejocote as it is commonly known locally, it is very used in the preparation of the punch of fruits, which is served during the celebrations of christmas and new year. The knocote fruits are yellow coloring rounds with diameter between 3 and 4 centimeters.

Historically, the species was used as well as food, as in herbal medicine, although your reputation is today as a circulatory tone.

All plant is used: roots, flowers, fruits, leaves and bole.

The species are also used as close living, enough resistant to strong winds.

The plant is many times used as fresh door for different fruits, the wood is very hard and tough, but difficult to work and rarely great the sufficient to be of great value, where it is generally used for tool cables and small objects, but very valued as coal, producing a little smoke and very heat, more than the wood of oak.

Its fruits are used in the preparation of delicious jellies and compotes, and its flowers and young leaves are also consumed in salads and other dishes.

The fruits for this variety of crataegus are similar as the crabapples (apples) in the palate and also are used in the preparation of the delicious pie creamy or tasted in natura.