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The water caltrop or water chestnut is either of two species
Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring....
 of the genus
Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
 Trapa: Trapa natans and Trapa bicornis. Both species are floating annual
Annual plant

An annual plant is a plant that usually germinates flowers and dies in one year. True annuals will only live longer than a year if they are prevented from setting seed....
 aquatic plant
Aquatic plant

Aquatic plants — also called hydrophytic plants or hydrophytes — are plants that have adapted to living in or on aquatic environments....
s, growing in slow-moving water up to 5 meters deep, native to warm temperate parts of Eurasia
Eurasia

Eurasia is a large landmass covering about 53,990,000 km? or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface . Often considered a single continent, Eurasia comprises the traditional continents of Europe and Asia, concepts which date back to classical antiquity and the borders for which are somewhat arbitrary....
 and Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
. They bear ornately shaped fruits that resemble the head of a bull, each containing a single very large starchy seed. It has been cultivated in China
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
 for at least 3,000 years for these seeds, which are boiled and sold as an occasional streetside snack in the south of that country.

generic name Trapa is derived from the Latin word for "thistle
Thistle

Thistle is the common name of a group of flowering plants characterised by leaf with sharp prickles on the margins, mostly in the plant family Asteraceae....
," calcitrappa, as is the name caltrop
Caltrop

A caltrop is an antipersonnel weapon made up of two sharp nails or spines arranged in such a manner that one of them always points upward from a stable base ....
.






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Encyclopedia


The water caltrop or water chestnut is either of two species
Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring....
 of the genus
Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
 Trapa: Trapa natans and Trapa bicornis. Both species are floating annual
Annual plant

An annual plant is a plant that usually germinates flowers and dies in one year. True annuals will only live longer than a year if they are prevented from setting seed....
 aquatic plant
Aquatic plant

Aquatic plants — also called hydrophytic plants or hydrophytes — are plants that have adapted to living in or on aquatic environments....
s, growing in slow-moving water up to 5 meters deep, native to warm temperate parts of Eurasia
Eurasia

Eurasia is a large landmass covering about 53,990,000 km? or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface . Often considered a single continent, Eurasia comprises the traditional continents of Europe and Asia, concepts which date back to classical antiquity and the borders for which are somewhat arbitrary....
 and Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
. They bear ornately shaped fruits that resemble the head of a bull, each containing a single very large starchy seed. It has been cultivated in China
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
 for at least 3,000 years for these seeds, which are boiled and sold as an occasional streetside snack in the south of that country.

Etymology

The generic name Trapa is derived from the Latin word for "thistle
Thistle

Thistle is the common name of a group of flowering plants characterised by leaf with sharp prickles on the margins, mostly in the plant family Asteraceae....
," calcitrappa, as is the name caltrop
Caltrop

A caltrop is an antipersonnel weapon made up of two sharp nails or spines arranged in such a manner that one of them always points upward from a stable base ....
. The Chinese name is língjiao, líng meaning "water caltrop" and jiao meaning "horn."

This plant should not be confused with the unrelated Eleocharis dulcis
Eleocharis dulcis

The Chinese water chestnut , more often called simply the water chestnut, is a grass-like Cyperaceae grown for its edible corms. It has tube-shaped, leafless green stems that grow to about 1.5 metres....
, also called water chestnut, an aquatic plant raised for food since ancient times in China
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
. Eleocharis dulcis is a sedge
Cyperaceae

The family Cyperaceae, or the sedges, is a taxon of monocotyledon flowering plants that superficially resemble Poaceae or Juncaceae. The family is large, with some 4,000 species described in about 70 genera....
 whose round, crisp-fleshed corm
Corm

A corm is a short, vertical, swollen underground plant Plant stem that serves as a storage organ used by some plants to survive winter or other adverse conditions such as summer drought and heat ....
s are common in Western-style Chinese food.

Biology


The water caltrop's submerged stem
Plant stem

A stem is one of two main structural axes of a vascular plant. The stem is normally divided into nodes and internodes, the nodes hold buds which grow into one or more leaf, inflorescence , conifer cones or other stems etc....
 reaches 12 to 15 ft (3.6 to 4.5 m) in length, anchored into the mud by very fine roots. It has two types of leaves
Leaf

In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant Organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin, to expose the cells containing chloroplast to light over a broad area, and to allow light to penetrate fully into the tissues....
, finely divided feather-like submerged leaves born along the length of the stem, and undivided floating leaves born in a rosette at the water's surface. The floating leaves have saw-tooth edges and are ovoid or triangular in shape, 2–3 cm long, on inflated petioles 5–9 cm long which provide added buoyancy for the leafy portion. Four-petaled white flower
Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproduction structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds....
s form in early summer and are insect-pollinated. The fruit is a nut with four 0.5 in (1 cm), barbed spines. Seed
Seed

A seed is a small Plant embryogenesis plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some Food storage. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant....
s can remain viable for up to 12 years, although most will germinate within the first two years.

The plant spreads by the rosette and fruits detaching from the stem and floating to another area on currents or by fruits clinging to objects, birds and other animals.

History


Investigations of archaeological material from southern Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 indicate that the prehistoric population of that region may well have relied significantly upon wild water chestnuts to supplement their normal diet and, in times of cultivated cereal crop failure, water chestnuts may even have been the main dietary component.

In the Chinese
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
 Zhou Dynasty
Zhou Dynasty

The Zhou Dynasty was preceded by the Shang Dynasty and followed by the Qin Dynasty in China. The Zhou dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in China history?though the actual political and military control of China by the dynasty only lasted during the Western Zhou....
, water caltrop was an important food for worship
Worship

Worship usually refers to acts of religion devotion typically directed to one or more deity. It is the informal term in English for what sociology of religion call cult —traditional beliefs and practices, the individual study of which is one of the chief concerns of theology....
 as prayer offerings. The Rites of Zhou
Rites of Zhou

The Rites of Zhou also known as Zhouguan is one of three ancient ritual texts listed among the classics of Confucianism. It was later renamed to Zhouli by Liu Xin to disambiguate from a chapter under Classic of History known as Zhouguan....
 (2nd century BC) mentioned that a worshipper "should use a bamboo
Bamboo

The bamboos are a group of woody perennial plant evergreen plants in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae....
 basket containing dried water caltrops, the seeds of Gorgon euryale
Euryale ferox

Euryale ferox is the only species in the genus Euryale. It is a flowering plant classified in the water lily family, Nymphaeaceae, although it is occasionally regarded as a distinct family Euryalaceae....
 and chestnuts" (????,????). The Chinese Herbal Medicine Summary (???? published in 1694, written by Wang Ang ??) indicates that water caltrop can help fever
Fever

Fever is a frequent medical sign that describes an increase in internal body temperature to levels above normal. Fever is most accurately characterized as a temporary elevation in the body's thermoregulatory set-point, usually by about 1?2 ?C ....
 and drunkenness
Drunkenness

Drunkenness or inebriation is the state of being intoxicated by consumption of alcoholic beverages to a degree that mental and physical faculties are noticeably impaired and/or skewed....
.

It was possible to buy water chestnuts in markets all over Europe until 1880. In northern Italy
Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
 the nuts were offered roasted, much as sweet chestnuts (Castanea sativa Mill.) are still sold today. At many places in Europe water chestnuts were known and used for human food until the beginning of the 20th century. Today, however, it is a rare plant. There may be several reasons for its near extinction, such as climate fluctuations, changes in the nutrient
Nutrient

A nutrient is a chemical that an organism needs to live and grow or a substance used in an organism's metabolism which must be taken in from its environment....
 content of water
Water

Water is a common chemical substance that is essential for the survival of all known forms of life. In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form or States of matter, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor or steam....
 bodies, and the drainage
Drainage

Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of surface and groundwater from an area. Many agricultural soils need drainage to improve production or to manage water supplies....
 of many wetlands, ponds and oxbow lake
Oxbow lake

An oxbow lake is a U-shaped body of water formed when a wide meander from the mainstem of a river is cut off to create a lake. This landform is called an oxbow lake for the distinctive curved shape that results from this process....
s.

It was introduced to North America
North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
 around 1874, and escaped cultivation
Cultivation

In agriculture, cultivation is the process of geting fater plants on arable land. It is usually associated with large-scale agriculture, as opposed to small-scale gardening....
 in the eastern United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
, where it has become an invasive species
Invasive species

Invasive species is a phrase with several definitions. The first definition expresses the phrase in terms of non-indigenous species that adversely affect the habitats they invade economically, environmentally or ecologically....
 from Vermont
Vermont

Vermont is a U.S. state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States United States. The state ranks 43rd by land area, , and 45th by total area....
 to Virginia
Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia is an United States U.S. state on the East Coast of the United States of the Southern United States. The state is known as the "Old Dominion" and sometimes as "Mother of Presidents", because it is the birthplace of Lists of United States Presidents by place of birth#By state....
.

In Australia
Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
, and its state of New South Wales water caltrop is declared as a noxious weed.

Disease


Fasciolopsiasis
Fasciolopsiasis

Fasciolopsiasis results from infection by the trematode Fasciolopsis buski Odhner, 1902, the largest intestinal Trematoda of humans ....
 can be transmitted by the surface of the plants. At a certain point in their life cycle, they infest on aquatic plants. From there they can be passed on to pigs, humans and other animals by raw consumption.

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