Gundelia or tumble thistle is a low to high () thistle-like perennial herbaceous plant with latex, spiny compound inflorescences, reminiscent of teasles and eryngos, that contain cream, yellow, greenish, pink, purple or redish-purple disk florets. It is assigned to the family Asteraceae. The flowers can be found from February to May. The stems of this plant dry-out when the seeds are ripe and break free from the underground root, and are then blown away like a tumbleweed, thus spreading the seeds effectively over large areas with little standing vegetation.
The main species in this genus (Gundelia tournefortii) is native to the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle-East. Opinions differ about the number of species in Gundelia. Sometimes the genus is regarded monotypic, G. tournefortii being a species with a large variability, but other authors distinguish up to nine species, differing in floret color and pubescence. Young stems are cooked and eaten in the Middle-East and are said to taste like a combination of artichoke and asparagus.
Description
thumb|Small plant in flower
Gundelia tournefortii is a spiny hemicryptophyte with stems that branch from the base. The first growth of the plant consists of a rosette of leaves. All parts contain a milky latex. The parts above the surface break from the root and may be blown away by the wind as a tumbleweed, assisting in the dispersion of the seed.
Root, stems and leaves
The plant develops a woody, vertical rootstock of up to 4 cm in diameter, at the surface usually covered by the remains of old leaves. The leaves are sessile or decurrent at their base with spiny wings, and alternate set along the stems. The lowest leaves are usually 7–30 cm long and 4–16 cm wide, pinnately dissected and the sections of the larger leaves may be pinnately parted themselves, and have a dentate or serrate margin, all tipped with spines. The midvein and sideveins are prominent, whitish, sometimes tinged purple. The leaf surface may be covered in spiderweb-like hairs, that tend to wither away quickly.
alt=Plant in flower|thumb|Inflorescence
The pentameric corollas are usually 7–10 mm long, gloomy purple or yellowish outside, white to bright yellow, greenish, flesh colored or silvery to red purple inside, with spreading narrow lobes of 3–4 mm mm long and about 1 mm wide, the tube hairless inside. The five merged anthers form a cylinder of 4–6 mm long, yellow or brownish in color. The style arms are also brownish.
Characters common to all Asteraceae
Like in all Asteraceae, the pentameric flowers have anthers that are fused together forming a tube through which the style grows. The style picks up the pollen on hairs along its length and splits into two style branches at its tip. These parts sit on an inferior ovary that grows into an indehiscent fruit in which only one seed develops (a so-called cypsela). All florets (in this case only one) are set on a common base (the receptacle), and are surrounded by several rows of bracts, that form an involucre. A particular character of Gudelia that is rare among the Asteraceae is that florets are gender specialised, with the central floret being functionally hermaphrodite and the marginal florets being functionally male.
Scolymus is also a thistle-like herbaceaceous perennial with anastomosing latex-ducts, related to Gundelia, but it has many yellow, orange or white ligulate florets in each flower head, which are arranged with many in a spike-like inflorescence, or with a few at the end of the stems.
Phytochemistry
Gundelia contains several essential oils, with large proportions (20–25% each) of thymol and .
Taxonomy
Taxonomic history
As far as known, the tumble thistle was first collected during an expedition by Leonhard Rauwolf (1573–1575), and this specimen can now be found in the National Herbarium in Leiden, the Netherlands. Tournefort, Von Gundelsheimer and Claude Aubriet also collected this plant while traveling through Greece, Turkey, former Armenia and Persia (1700–1702). Since Von Gundelsheimer was the first to have sighted the plant, his companions began to call it Gundelia. Tournefort already observed the remarkable morphology of the compounded flower heads. Carl Linnaeus in 1753 adopted and published this name, providing the correct name.
Modern classification
Debate on the number of subtaxa remains and some authors think there is only one species, Gundelia tournefortii. Others also recognise G. aragatsi, a form only known from Armenia, that has brown red corollas and very felty inflorescences. Some even distinguish up to nine different taxa.
Phylogeny
According to recent genetic analyses, the genus Gundelia is related to the genera Hymenonema, Scolymus and Catananche. This results in the following relationship tree. In autumn, the dried yellow layers of the plant cover all the mountains, so much so that the degree that can be seen even from space. The tumble thistle can be found in Cyprus, Turkey (Anatolia), Armenia, Azerbaijan, Northern Iraq, northern Iran, Israel, Afghanistan, western Syria, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt. The base of the young leaves which is still under the surface is used by Bedouin and Arabs to make akkub soup. In Israel the plant is protected and in danger of extinction, harvesting it in nature reserves is strictly prohibited and allowed under restrictions for private use only outside them; young flower heads, stems and leaves are collected between March and May, and are then fried in olive oil, mixed with a stew of meat chops until well done, and served mixed with yogurt. Gundelia is said to taste like something between asparagus and artichoke.
A chewing gum can be made from the latex, a fact that is already mentioned by Tournefort in 1718, and is called "kenger sakızı" in Turkish. The fruits as well as roots can be roasted and ground to be used as substitute coffee, and is known as "kenger kahvesi". In recent times, mature seeds have been used to extract oil. Remains of charred inflorescences of Gundelia from the Neolithic found in Turkey and Iraq indicate that oil was pressed from the seeds at least 10,000 years ago.
Traditional uses
Traditionally, Gundelia is used to treat a wide variety of ailments such as liver diseases, diabetes, chest pain, heart attacks, pain in the chest and the stomach, leukoderma, diarrhea and bronchitis.
Fodder
Fully grown foliage is used to feed livestock in spite of the spines, both fresh (in Syria and Palestine) and dry (in Kurdistan and Iran). the Israel Nature and Parks Authority states that the ban is part of a wildlife conservation effort.
Later, the ban was eased to allow foraging for personal use.