Dicoma capensis

Less.

Karmedik

AsteraceaeLeaves

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(c) Sabine Atteln, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Sabine Atteln

What to Eat

Edible parts: Leaves

The leaves are cooked and eaten.

Where to Find It

It is a subtropical plant. It grows in dry sandy soils. It grows between 150-1,400 m above sea level. It grows in areas with a rainfall below 250 mm per year. It can grow in arid places.

Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Europe, Namibia, South Africa, Southern Africa, Swaziland,

Countries: Andorra, Albania, Angola, Austria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Belgium, Burkina Faso, Bulgaria, Burundi, Benin, Botswana, Belarus, Congo (DRC), Central African Republic, Congo (Republic), Switzerland, Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Djibouti, Denmark, Algeria, Estonia, Egypt, Eritrea, Spain, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, United Kingdom, Ghana, Gambia, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Greece, Guinea-Bissau, Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Kenya, Comoros, Liechtenstein, Liberia, Lesotho, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Libya, Morocco, Monaco, Moldova, Montenegro, Madagascar, North Macedonia, Mali, Mauritania, Malta, Mauritius, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Russia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, Sierra Leone, San Marino, Senegal, Somalia, South Sudan, Sao Tome & Principe, Eswatini, Chad, Togo, Tunisia, Tanzania, Ukraine, Uganda, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe

How to Identify

A herb. It lies along the ground. It can grow each year from seed or take 2 years to complete its life cycle. It has a taproot and can keep growing for several years. The stem have a white coating. The leaves are simple and narrowly oval. They taper to the base and there are small teeth along the edge. The flowers are in pale red heads. There are some long spiny bracts. The flower heads are 2 cm across. They occur singly in the axils of the upper leaves.

Names & Synonyms

Manku, Tshefhifha-vhana, Umgilane

References (7)

Fox, F. W. & Young, M. E. N., 1982, Food from the Veld. Delta Books. p 121
Long, C., 2005, Swaziland's Flora - siSwati names and Uses http://www.sntc.org.sz/flora/
Plowes, N. J. & Taylor, F. W., 1997, The Processing of Indigenous Fruits and other Wildfoods of Southern Africa. in Smartt, L. & Haq. (Eds) Domestication, Production and Utilization of New Crops. ICUC p 189
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (1999). Survey of Economic Plants for Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (SEPASAL) database. Published on the Internet; http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/ceb/sepasal/internet [Accessed 11th April 2011]
Ruiters-Welcome, A. K., 2019, Food plants of southern Africa. Ph.D. thesis. Univ. of Johannesburg p 34
Welcome, A. K. & Van Wyk, B.-E., 2019, An inventory and analysis of the food plants of southern Africa. South African Journal of Botany 122 (2019) 136–179
World Checklist of Useful Plant Species 2020. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

What to Eat

Where to Find It

How to Identify

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