English: Maltese fungus; Maltese mushroom; Desert thumb; Red thumb.
Bedouin: Tarthuth; Treasure of drugs.
Chinese: Suo yang.
Use: wide variety of uses in European, Arabic and Chinese herbal medicine.
Botany: parasitic, perennial; dry, rocky, sandy soils; salt marshes, saline habitats, close to the coast.
Source: Mike Andrews.
Region: Mediterranean regions, Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Mauritania, Tunisia, Bahrain, Spain, Portugal, southern Italy, Sardinia, Sicily, Gozo, Malta and the Eastern Mediterranean, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Central Asia, Mongolia.
Habitat: dry, rocky or sandy soils; salt marshes, saline habitats close to the coast; high altitudes.
Ecology: parsitises on
Cistaceae,
Amaranthaceae, Atriplex,
Tamaricaceae,
Nitrariaceae, Nitraria sibirica, saltbushes.
Culture: the city of Kuyu was also known as Suoyang City, the Chinese name for cynomorium after an army supposedly survived a siege by eating the plant. The Knights of Malta greatly prized the plant, incorrectly believed it to be a fungus, preventing theft of the plants. Arabic physicians called it "tarthuth" and "the treasure of drugs".
Content: anthocyanic glycosides, triterpenoid saponins, lignans; gallic acid, cyanidin-3-O-glucoside.
Use: European, Arabian and Chinese herbal medicine; contraceptive; toothpaste; non-fading crimson fabric dye; as famine food; relished by camels.
BotanyParasitic perennial herb; holoparasite, has no chlorophyll; geophyte, lives mostly underground, in the form of a
rhizome, which is attached to the roots of its host plant; sweet, slightly cabbage-like odour.
Stem: rhizome; stem fleshy, unbranched.
Leaves: scale-like, membranous.
Inflorescence: low-growing; dark-red or purplish, turning black when pollinated; dense; erect, club-shaped mass; 15 to 30 cm tall,
Flowers: minute; scarlet; male, female or hermaphrodite.
Pollination: by flies.
Fruit: small, indehiscent nut.
TaxonomyCynomorium has been difficult to place. It was thought to be member of the
Balanophoraceae. DNA studies suggest that it belongs to the
Saxifragales, possibly near
Crassulaceae. The issue is complicated by the massive horizontal gene transfer between Cynomorium and its different hosts.