Greetings dear friends, it is the first time that I write in this community that I am very enthusiastic to tell you about my experience discovering a garden plant native to Colombia that is quite rare.
In recent days we went to visit a friend of my mother who is of Colombian nationality, in her house she has some large gardens and when I went out to visit them I found a plant that caught my attention, it is a small ornamental shrub about forty centimeters high, with leaves somewhat covered with beautiful and a very colorful fruit that when it is in formation is between green and yellow colors, but when it is ripe it looks like a strong orange color. However, it has a very atypical shape, it looks like a tomato, but it has bumps that can simulate the udder of a cow, it is really strange, its unusual shape caught my attention, and then I asked what this plant was all about.
My mother's friend told me that this plant is very rare and reproduces only in some areas of Colombia, many know it as the poisonous tomato, it is a breed of tomato native to America, they say it is used for medicinal purposes, and the common name as it is known in that country is Lulo de Perro, but also in some countries like Costa Rica it is known as ubre de vaca, it happens that this fruit, although it is poisonous to eat it directly, through certain herbal processes can be processed and extract from it a kind of serum that serves for medicinal purposes.
This striking and colorful plant can be used according to what my mother's friend told me for foot fungus, it is also widely used in her country to combat sinusitis because the distilled serum of this plant has properties to unblock the nose and decongest, especially in cases of colds. However, it is not used directly by applying it in the nose, but the resulting serum is placed in hot water and put to boil, the steam that comes out of there is breathed deeply and helps to decongest the airways.
It is important to emphasize that this process is very delicate and must be prepared by someone who knows how to do it, since the plant and its fruit are considered poisonous if ingested directly. According to what I was told some rural localities even use the leaves of this plant as a detergent, apparently, the plants have certain properties to wash clothes that when rubbed against the clothes generate foam and clean the fabrics, then rinsed well.
Well the plant was so striking and so visual experience that I loved the garden, so I took this series of photographs to show you this peculiar plant that perhaps in your country is known, but for me, it was seeing it for the first time, I consider it very unusual and quite strange, but at the same time it is beautiful and striking for its yellow and orange colors I liked it very much, and I think it adorns as an ornamental form this beautiful garden of my mother's friend.
I also learned something new that this plant has medicinal properties, I learned from the experience that you should not touch the plants without knowing it because some of them are poisonous or can cause skin problems because they have a sap that protects them.
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