Trapa bicornis

Common Name: Ling Nut, Devil Pod, Bat Nut

Family: Lythraceae

Country of Origin: eastern Asia

Description: The Devil Pod, also known as Bat Nut, Goat Head, Bull Nut, and Buffalo Nut, is the seed pod of Trapa bicornis, an aquatic Asian plant. Glossy and black, it averages 2 1/2 - 3 inches from tip to tip, and when dried and oiled, its surface texture is similar to that of a chestnut or buckeye. However, depending on the way it is viewed, this naturally sculpted botanical oddity looks like nothing so much as a leering goat-horned devil, an enraged bull demon, a flying bat, or an alien chupacabra! The illusion of an evil face appears on both sides of the pod, and the two faces are usually quite different in visage.

Both Trapa natans and Trapa bicornis are occasionally and erroneously called "water chestnuts," but that name more properly belongs to Eleocharis dulcis, a vegetable whose crisp and crunchy white tuber is a common ingredient in Chinese food. Strangely enough, when roasted, water caltrops taste more like chestnuts than water chestnuts do.

Uses:

Accession #: 445

Accession Date: 2006-02-16 00:00:00

Bloom Status: 🪴 Not Flowering

Culture: Starchy seed inside fruits in cooked and eaten. Raw seeds contain toxins, but these are neutralized in cooking. This species was used for food in Neolithic Britain.
The flowers are astringent in fluxes].
The fruit is used in the treatment of fever and sunstroke.
The plant is anticancer, antipyretic and tonic.

Division: Magnoliophyta

Class: Magnoliopsida

Subclass: rosids

Order: Myrtales

Family: Lythraceae