Jujube

Jujube (UK ˈdʒuːdʒuːb; US ˈdʒudʒub or ˈdʒudʒ@biː), sometimes jujuba, known by the scientific name Ziziphus jujuba and also called red date, Chinese date, and Chinese jujube, is a species in the genus Ziziphus in the buckthorn family Rhamnaceae. The plant is known in Arabic and Persian as Annab (عناب, literally 'grape'), and as hinap or finab in eastern Bulgaria. In Somali it is called mareer. It is a small deciduous tree or shrub reaching a height of , usually with thorny branches. The leaves are shiny-green, ovate-acute, long and wide, with three conspicuous veins at the base, and a finely toothed margin. The flowers are small, wide, with five inconspicuous yellowish-green petals. The fruit is an edible oval drupe deep; when immature it is smooth-green, with the consistency and taste of an apple with lower acidity, maturing brown to purplish-black, and eventually wrinkled, looking like a small date. There is a single hard kernel, similar to an olive pit, containing two seeds. Leaves contain saponin and ziziphin, which suppresses the ability to perceive sweet taste. Flavinoids found in the fruits include Kaempferol 3-O-rutinoside, Quercetine 3-O-robinobioside, Quercetine 3-O-rutinoside. Terpenoids such as colubrinic acid and alphitolic acid were found in the fruits. The ultimate source of the name is Ancient Greek ζίζυφον zízyphon. This was borrowed into Classical Latin as zizyphum (used for the fruit) and zizyphus (the tree). A descendant of the Latin word into a Romance language, which may have been French jujube or medieval Latin jujuba, in turn gave rise to the common English jujube. This name is not related to jojoba, which is a loan from Spanish jojoba, itself borrowed from hohohwi, the name of that plant in a Native American language. The binomial name has a curious nomenclatural history, due to a combination of botanical naming regulations, and variations in spelling. It was first named in the binomial system by Carl Linnaeus as Rhamnus zizyphus, in Species Plantarum (1753).