Capparis cartilaginea

Introduction

Capparis cartilaginea Decne or Capparis spinosa var. cartilaginea or Capparis spinosa subsp. cartilaginea, is a member of family Capparaceae, commonly called Capers. The members of the family Capparaceae grow in arid conditions, in rocky silty soils, stones, and depression along roadsides, and can sustain adverse climatic conditions without showing any signs of stress. They have been known to human beings since the early days of civilization and it is stated that the word Capparis was coined in 4th century BC by Theophrastus (Inocencio, Rivera, Concepción Obón, Alcaraz & Barreña, 2006). The genus includes about 250 species that include herbs, shrubs, and trees. Pickles made from the flower buds, unripe fruit or young twigs of Capers by vinegar or salt are sold commercially to be used as condiments (Rivera et al., 2003). Capers are known by many names at different regions viz, Gollaro in Pakistan, AlCapparo in Spain and Khabbar in Arab (Tlili et al., 2011). Capparis cartilaginea Decne is known popularly as Shahflah in certain regions of Saudi Arabia.

Geographic distribution

Capparis spinosa subsp. cartilaginea or Capparis cartilaginea Decne is a tropical plant having a very wide distribution range from south Asia including Indian and Pakistan to South-west Asia, Madagascar and Eastern Africa (Fici, 2020). The plant has been reported from various locations along with the globe. These include French southern territories near Madagascar, Somalia, Yemen, Israel, Kenya, Palestine, Djibouti, Oman, Jordan, Chad, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Seychelles, Tanzania and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ("Capparis cartilaginea Decaisne", 2019).

Morphological character:

Capers are perineal shrubs about 30 to 100cm tall with 6 to 10m long roots. Leaves are 2-5cm long with an alternate phyllotaxy. They are petiolate, have a round base and maybe elliptical to oval in shape and are leathery evergreen and fleshy. The cuticle is thick and astriate and anomocytic stomata are present (Algfri, Munaiem, Qaid & Mohammed, 2019). The apex of leaves may be emarginated, or obtuse often ending in a hook, and the flower bud appearance is continuous. Genus Capparis is characterized by the 5-7cm diameter solitary or axillary flowers with white petals and purple sepals. The fruit is called caperberry and is ellipsoid or oval and on ripening it bursts open The pericarp of the fruit is thin; the flesh inside is yellowish. Upon bursting of the fruits the reniform seeds of 3-4mm diameter are exposed (Tlili et al., 2011)

According to Christina Inocencio et al., Capparis cartilaginea Decne is a representative species of the sect Galaetae (Infrageneric rank), characterized by Capers having flowers that are always solitary at the leaf axils (Inocencio, Rivera, Concepción Obón, Alcaraz & Barreña, 2006). The flowers are always zygomorphic having numerous >50 stamens. The sepals are strongly galeate and abaxial as against the Capparis spinosa L where sepals are not galeate and flowers are not or only slightly zygomorphic.

Ethnobotanical use

In traditional Arabian medicine Capparis cartilaginea Decne herb is used for the treatment of inflammation, pain in the ear, headache, healing of bruises, snakebite, and childbirth (Hamed, Abdel-Shafeek, Abdel-Azim, Ismail & Hammouda, 2007). Asian literature of indigenous medicine states that it has been traditionally used in paralysis, gout, rheumatism, tuberculosis, and splenomegaly (Said, 1969; Nadkarni, 1976). It has also been used as an expectorant, anthelmintic, diuretic and laxative to relieve constipation. In Saudi Arabia, in the Al Qassim region, the Capparis cartilaginea (CC) tree is called by the local name Shahflah (Youssef, 2013). It is traditionally being utilized for seven types of medicinal purposes viz., anti-inflammatory, purgative, tonic, antitumor, wound wash, disinfectant and sudorotive. In the Tabuk region of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia CC has been reported to be utilized traditionally for the treatment of diabetes and rheumatism and also as an anthelminthic (Abdul, Haitham, Moawia, Saud & Fahad, 2014). In Yemen, the CC has been used traditionally for the treatment of tumors, heat-cold, shortness of breath and itching (Mothana, Lindequist, Gruenert & Bednarski, 2009).

Phytochemical studies

Many phytochemical studies have been conducted on Capparis cartilaginea and many of them include finding the anti-oxidant activity simultaneously, in different extracts from various parts of this plant.

Sharif et al investigated for the flavonoid content in the aerial parts of four Cleome and three Capparis species (Sharaf, El-Ansari & Saleh, 1997). CC was observed to contain a high content of Kaempherol 3-Rutinoside, Quercetin 3-Rutinoside, Quercetin 7-Rutinoside, Quercetin 3-G-7-Rhamanoside. The amount of Kaempherol 3-Rutinoside, Quercetin 7-Rutinoside, and Quercetin 3-G-7-Rhamnoside content were even higher than the classical Capparis spinose. This study revealed that the methylated flavonoids are absent in the Capparis genus and four types of flavonol glucosides although present in Capparis, show species differences.
GC/MS analysis of Glucosinolate aglucones obtained from CC from Egypt, revealed four types of Isothiocyanates viz, butyl isothiocyanate (65.03%), 6methylsulfonylhexyl isothiocyanate (29.86%), 7-methylsulfonylheptyl isothiocyanate (0.066%) and -bezylsulfonyl-4bentenyl isothiocyanate (0.914%) (Hamed, Abdel-Shafeek, Abdel-Azim, Ismail & Hammouda, 2007). Further, the main flavonoid compound Rutin was obtained only in the Butanol fraction (5.6%), but not in the ethyl acetate fraction. The Tolorox, Chloroform and Butanol extracts of CC also showed high antioxidant activity (94.96%, 66.75%, and 77.24% respectively) as revealed by the DPPH assay.

The antioxidant activity on the aqueous and methanolic extracts of CC from Jordan was observed to be 91.8 μmol TE g-1 dry weight (4.6%) and 81.1 μmol TE g-1 dry weight (4.7%) respectively (Alali et al., 2007). In addition, the Phenolic content was 28.3 (2.8%) mg GE g-1 dry weight 20.8 mg GE g-1 dry weight (2.9%) respectively in the aqueous and methanolic extracts of CC.

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