Kewa acida
English: Salad plant.
Genus: 8 species.
Region: St Helena.
Habitat: hot, dry coastal regions, up to 550 m in elevation.
Culture: critically endangered.
Content: vitamin C.
Use: leaves have a salty acid taste by sailors to prevent scurvy.
Botany
Bushy, annual or short-lived perennial plant; up to 30 cm tall, 1 m wide; spreading.
Stem: woody at the base.
Leaves: succulent; bluish-grey waxy coat; narrow; ± 4 cm long, 3 mm wide; smooth.
Inflorescence: false umbel; two to seven flowers; pedicel up to 2 cm long.
Flowers: white; ± 3 cm across; tepals 5, arranged in a single whorl, the outer two appear to be sepals, being green, one appears to be half sepal and half petal, the inner two appear to be petals, being white with a green stripe on the back; stamens arranged in two whorls, ten paired in one whorl alternating with five single in the other; ovary superior.
Fruit: yellowish-brown, dehiscent, containing small black seeds.
Taxonomy
Kewa acida was first described by Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1868, as Pharnaceum acidum. In 1908, Konrad Müller transferred it to the genus Hypertelis, as Hypertelis acida, in the family Aizoaceae. Hypertelis was subsequently placed in Molluginaceae. Phylogenetic studies showed that most species in Hypertelis did not belong there, and 8 species were placed in 2014 a new genus Kewa, in its own family Kewaceae.