Rheum ribes

Rheum ribes, the Syrian rhubarb or currant-fruited rhubarb, or warty-leaved rhubarb, is an edible wild rhubarb species in the genus Rheum. It grows between 1000 and 4000 m on dunite rocks, among stones and slopes, and is now distributed in the temperate and subtropical regions of the world, chiefly in Western Asia (Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia) to Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Syrian rhubarb a partially commercial vegetable collected from the nature in Eastern and Southern Anatolia, Northern Iraq and partly Northwestern Iran in early spring. Rheum ribes is considered as a valuable medicinal species in herbal medicine. The Syrian rhubarb is a dichotomously branched perennial stout herb, up to 1 m tall. It has thick perennial rhizomes, large annual bean-shaped reddish-green leaves with stalks, edible flower stalks, small yellowish flowers arranged in panicles, three-sided ovate-oblong achenes and broad red-winged dull brown fruit. The flowering stem (peduncle) is solid, warty, leafy below, leafless above. It is very similar to the species Rheum palaestinum, being distinguished by having five central leaf veins as opposed to three, and being taller. Agnia Losina-Losinskaja considered it very similar in leaves and flowers to R. maximowiczii from further north in Central Asia, but to be distinguished from it by its much rougher stem, much longer leaf petioles and broader inflorescence. R. maximowiczii furthermore has three veins per leaf. R. ribes has a chromosome count of 2n=44. Rheum ribes was first formally described in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus. It was one of three species of Rheum described in Species Plantarum volume 1. Linnaeus referred to five earlier authors who had described the plant: Johann Jacob Dillenius, Jacob Breyne (who calls it a Lapathum, known as Ribes arabicum), Richard Pococke (who published in 1745 a description of his travels in the Near East and who brought seeds to England from Lebanon), Leonhard Rauwolf and Gaspard Bauhin. In 1936 Losina-Losinskaja, in Komarov's Flora SSSR, classifies this species in section Ribesiformia, in which she also places R. maximowiczii, R. fedtschenkoi, R. cordatum, R. hissaricum and R. macrocarpum (and R. lobatum and R. plicatum, which are both now seen as synonyms of R. macrocarpum). This plant is first mentioned in Europe in the Arabic work, in English called the Book of Simple Medicaments, by Serapion the Younger, the Latin translation of which circulated throughout Europe in the late 13th to 15th century. Serapion says the plant is used to make the medicine thenceforth known in Europe as rob ribes. In Europe, herbalists initially thought he was describing a currant, which they then used to make local, lesser ribes.