It grows wild in the USSR (Transcaucasia, Kopet-Dag, South Tajikistan), Asia Minor, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Western Pakistan, in the Himalayas up to a height of 1900 m above sea level. m., China, Korea. It is cultivated well in the subtropics of both hemispheres.
Large (3-8 m), spreading-branched, prickly, deciduous shrub with red-brown branches, in nodes with sharp thorns within 3 cm in length. Thin green shoots depart from here. The leaves are alternate, ovate, with 3 excretory veins. The flowers are small, greenish, 5-dimensional, sitting in balls in the axils of the leaves. The fruit is a drupe, spherical or oval, 2-3 cm long, red-brown, traditionally with one pit extended into a spout. The fruits are edible.
The fruits are highly sugary (mainly invert sugar), there are protein and mucous substances, a lot of vitamin C. Dried fruits have long been used in the form of an aqueous decoction, as a mucous and enveloping remedy for coughs, bronchitis, whooping cough. The leaves of the shrub have a peculiar property – when chewed, they temporarily remove the sensation of sweet and bitter taste, but, as experiments have shown, pain in the mouth remains. The substance (up to 1.7%) that has this effect has not yet been studied.
The plant belongs to sugar, contains carbohydrates. SUGAR-BEARING PLANTS Sugar-bearing plants are understood as plants in which large amounts of monosaccharides (glucose, fructose) and sucrose accumulate.