Description
The rose hips or rose hips are, botanically , the false-fruit from the transformation of the floral receptacle of rose and rose hips , and more generally plants of the genus Rosa , family Rosaceae . The actual fruits of the rose bushes are actually the achenes located inside.
Rosehips of a rose hips .
The rose hips are vulgarly called “scratches” because they provide hair to scratch .
The rose hip is sometimes also called “gousson”.
Etymology
The term comes from the Greek , kunorhodon , which means “dog rose”. This name comes from the properties attributed to the root of the wild rose ( “dog rose”, the flower (wild rose) is also called canine rose, dog rose in English ) to fight against the rage .
The Dictionary of the French Academy retains the only spelling “cynorhodon”, but the spelling “cynorrhodon” is also admitted.
Description
Rose bush fruits
The rose hip is an elongated fleshy fruit ovoid, more or less globular depending on the species and varieties, 15 to 25 mm long, orange-red at maturity. It forms a kind of urn, open at the top, which bears the dried out remains of stamens and sepals . It contains inside twenty to thirty real fruits which are achenes resulting from the transformation of carpels , each containing a single seed . These achenes, prolonged by the rest of the styles and stigmas , are provided with numerous sterile hairs .
The rose hips mature in the fall, around October-November in the northern hemisphere, but can be seen all winter in the hedgerows .
Use
Rose hips contain hairs that must be carefully removed because they are very irritating to the skin and mucous membranes and can be used as hair to scratch 2 . When ripe, the fruits are edible, fairly astringent and acidic , and especially the presence of irritating hair can cause itching in the anus .
Nyponsoppa , Swedish dessert prepared with rose hips
However, they are rich in vitamin C (20 times more than citrus fruits), but also in vitamins B and PP , provitamin A and mineral salts, and contain sugars: sucrose and levulose .
Turkish tea with rose hips
Food use
The fruit of the rose hip is used especially cooked in homemade jams and homemade (jam rosehips or wild rose jam in Alsace ), jelly, marmalade and ketchup, syrups and liqueurs, alone or mixed with various other fruits.
Fresh, softened by the frosts, after a light cooking rosehips form a dough that is eaten sweet with dairy products, providing the body with an important nutrient intake in a rapidly assimilable form, and slightly diuretic.
The very smooth rose hips, pressed with 3 or 4 fingers, nibble: the pulp leaves while the hairs and seeds remain in the skin and can be used to make decoctions (boiled less than five minutes).
Dried and reduced to powder, they serve as a decoction for herbal teas. You can also make beer, wine.
Local uses
In Sweden , rose hips are the basis of nyponsoppa , literally rose hip soup , which is a dessert often served with milk and cream or vanilla ice cream.
Many Amerindian peoples consumed Rose Hips as an excellent survival food because they remain attached to the plant all winter long. Some people made a decoction or a beer.
The Blackfeet consumed them with pemmican (dried meat + fat).
The Eskimos of Alaska made it a kind of pudding (crushed pulp with seal oil, water and sugar) or added the berries to a dish consisting of pre-chewed and dried salmon tails.
The Tanainas made it a sort of ice cream (mixed with grease or yellow fish eggs).
In Armenia , we drink the juice of the rose hips.
In Chechnya , we make rose hip tea.
Medicinal use
In popular medicine, rose hips are used especially against diarrhea , vitamin deficiency and asthenia . They are used either as a decoction or in the form of wine or elixir – maceration in alcohol with the addition of sugar.
The herbalists use hair from rosehips, administered fasting coated in honey, to eliminate roundworm .
