Water caltrop
Name Variations[]
- horned water chestnut
- Jesuit nut
- ling kio
- ling chio
- ling kok
- ling jiao
About Water caltrop[]
Wikipedia Article About Water caltrop on Wikipedia
The water caltrop or horned water chestnut is a floating annual aquatic plant, growing in slow-moving water up to 5 meters deep, native to warm temperate parts of Eurasia and Africa. It bears ornately shaped fruits, each containing a single very large starchy seed. It has been cultivated in China for at least 3000 years for these seeds, which are boiled and sold as an occasional streetside snack in the south of that country.
(This plant should not be confused with the unrelated Eleocharis dulcis, also called water chestnut, and also an aquatic plant raised for food since ancient times in China. Eleocharis dulcis is a sedge whose round, crisp-fleshed corms are common in Western-style Chinese food.)