Description:
Nigella damascena is an upright growing, small to medium sized, annual garden flowering plant that normally grows about 15 to 24 inches (28-61 cm.) in height and up to a foot (31 cm.) in width. The plant is found growing in stony, sunny positions, dump sites, waste places, fields, meadows, roadsides and in rocky ground. The plant prefers moist sandy soil, though it doesn't like to sit in wet soil and does best with a neutral soil pH. Nigella damascena can tolerate somewhat dry conditions, as well as other types of soil, including loam, clay-loam, and gravelly soil. The stem can be branched or unbranched, erect, slender, about 10-75 cm long and glabrous.
Leaves
Nigella damascena leaves are primary or secondary pinnately lobed and finely lobed. The lower stem leaves are stalked, 2-3 mm long, and the upper leaves are sessile. Plants have finely cut, bright green leaves that resembles fennel leaves.
Flowers
Nigella damascena flowers have a single branch-top and a 5-calyx, usually bright blue to very pale blue but some may be white, pink, or lavender, petal-like, 8-12 mm long, elliptically ovate, and gradually narrow into claws at the base. The upper lip is shorter than the lower lip, its apex gradually narrows into a linear shape, the lower lip is 2 deep cleft, the middle of the wider, apex and middle of the tuberous process. Stamens are numerous, anthers obtuse or slightly acuminate. Nigella damascena usually has 5 carpel, basally united into a complex ovary. Flowering normally takes place in between July to October. Each solitary flower appears to sit on a bed of lacy (and misty) foliage, hence the common name.
Fruit
Fertile flowers are followed by attractive, swollen balloon-shaped seedpod fused at the base to form a capsule (actually an inflated capsule composed of 5 fused true seedpods), about 1.5- 2 cm long, with a decent tip and an 8-10 mm tip beak. Fruits are green with purple or bronze stripes becoming brown as they mature. Nigella damascena has many black seeds that are oblate triangulate. Surface is rough with small dots.Stems with dried seed capsules make excellent additions to dried flower arrangements. Cultivars (some with double flowers) come in additional flower colors including white, pink, rose, violet and purple.
Health Benefits:
- It has antibacterial, antifungal, anti-parasitic, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
- In Eastern traditional medicine it is used for the treatment of high temperatures, regulation of menstruation or catarrhal affections.
- Nigella damascena seeds are said to have an expectorant effect in small doses (which is used to treat coughs).
- Herbal healers grind these seeds into a paste and mix them with honey for treatment of flu, asthma and upper-respiratory conditions.
- These seeds if consumed in moderation can help digestion.
- It is also used to fight diabetes, cholesterol and reduce pain.
- Nigella damascena has the effect of removing gastrointestinal parasites and prolactin.
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