Bladderdock

Conservation status:

Native

Description:

Growth form: Annual herb. Flowering. Mar–Apr. Status: Native. Local. Also recorded: Kuwait, E Saudi Arabia, UAE. Habitat & distribution: Occasional in rocky terrain in shallow deposits of sand or silt, but also recorded in cultivated areas. Uses: The leaves can be eaten raw or cooked. Mandaville reports from an earlier source that it was sometimes added during preparation of iqt (dried milk shards) to increase the acidity. A long list of medicinal properties are given by Rizk & El-Ghazaly and other authors. Ghazanfar states that the leaves and seeds are used to treat scorpion stings.