Saturday, June 5, 2010

Capparis spinosa L.


The beauty of caper flowers is as fragile and short-lived as that of poppy flowers: The delicate, cream-white petals and lively purple stamina persist only a few hours. When cultivated for the capers, the flower never blooms as the bud must be harvested before it blooms.

Capers are essential for several Mediterranean cuisines and are mostly associated with Italian (and Cypriot) foods. They are mostly used in tomato or wine sauces and suit poultry and fish. Furthermore, they are popular with cold meat and frequently used on pizza. Capers harmonize with most other Mediterranean spices (basil, oregano and garlic, just to name a few) and are frequently combined with pickled olives.

They are also hardy little plants. The plant in this photo grew out of the wall on my front patio...without any dirt...and it broke the terracotta baseboard. The "spinosa" in its Latin name refers to its sharp thorns. An example of the "strength" of beauty!


9 comments:

Gunn said...

It is pretty!:)

Bolzano Daily Photo said...

Fantastic this caper flower! Great capture. Greetings from South Tyrol, Karl

B SQUARED said...

Learn something here everyday.

Luis Gomez said...

Beautiful flower. Thanks for the info.

Lowell said...

I've never heard of nor have I seen this flower. It's truly gorgeous. All those stamina look like little ET's...

Thanks, too, for your commentary. All new to me and very interesting.

VP said...

Interesting and beautiful!

Karl said...

Hi Saretta, beautiful blog! I have added a link to your blog on my sidebar at Bolzano Daily Photo.

Kind regards - Karl

Chattahoochee Valley Daily said...

I love capers and love this beautiful flower. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Matt said...

Beautiful image!