Citrullus colocynthis – Abu Jahls melon

Description

Citrullus colocynthis, with many common names including Abu Jahls melon, (native name in Turkey) colocynth, bitter apple, bitter cucumber, egusi, vine of Sodom, or wild gourd, is a desert viny plant native to the Mediterranean Basin and Asia, especially Turkey (especially in regions such as ?zmir), and Nubia.

It resembles a common watermelon vine, but bears small, hard fruits with a bitter pulp. It originally bore the scientific name Colocynthis citrullus.

C. colocynthis can be eaten or processed for further uses in medicine and as energy source, e.g. oilseed and biofuel. The characteristic small seed of the colocynth have been found in several early archeological sites in northern Africa and the Near East, specifically at Neolithic Armant, Nagada in Egypt; at sites dating from 3800 BC to Roman times in Libya; and the pre-pottery Neolithic levels of the Nahal Hemar caves in Israel. Zohary and Hopf speculate, “these finds indicate that the wild colocynth was very probably used by humans prior to its domestication.”

Colocynth has been widely used in traditional medicine for centuries.

In Arabia the colocynth had numerous uses in traditional medicine, such as a laxative, diuretic, or for insect bites. The powder of colocynth was sometimes used externally with aloes, unguents, or bandages. Lozenges or troches made of colocynth were called “troches of alhandal” or Trochisci Alhandalæ and used as a laxative. They were usually composed of colocynth, bdellium, and gum tragacanth. Alhandal was a term used in Arabia for the extract of colocynth and is derived from the Arabic ??????????? al-?an?al, a name for colocynth.

In traditional Arab veterinary medicine, colocynth sap was used to treat skin eruptions in camels.