Exquisite Pitahaya Flower: Types, Value & Delights

The Pitahaya, or Dragon Fruit, is a plant of the cactaceae family and the Hylocereus genus, boasting high economic value. This versatile plant serves multiple roles as a fruit, ornamental flower, vegetable, health food, and medicinal resource, making it a truly priceless gem. The dried Dragon Fruit flower is a health and food product created using advanced microwave cell-wall breaking technology.

The unique mucus found in the Dragon Fruit’s flowers and stems, owing to their extremely low osmotic pressure, contains numerous nutritionally and therapeutically significant substances. Its flowers possess heat-clearing, lung-moistening, and cough-suppressing properties, and offer adjunctive therapy for tuberculosis, bronchitis, and cervical lymphadenitis.

Characteristics

The Dragon Fruit, known as the “king of fruits,” is oval-shaped with a vibrant red skin that’s impossible to ignore. Each large fruit weighs between 500 and 1200 grams, its flesh either snow-white or blood-red, sweet but not greasy, subtly fragrant, and surpasses the taste of a cantaloupe.

Its sweetness measures 16-18 degrees, surpassing even a watermelon. Considering its structure, ways of consumption, taste, and cultivation methods, it might as well be called a “tree watermelon.”

The Dragon Fruit is an exotic ornamental plant with columnar stems. Its gigantic, glossy flowers, boasting a corolla diameter of 25 cm and a length of 45 cm, can individually weigh between 600 and 800 grams, hence it is known as the “king of large flowers.”

When these beautiful flowers bloom, their aroma is strikingly fragrant. As a potted plant, its aesthetic appeal brings a sense of auspiciousness, thus earning it the nickname “lucky fruit.”

Value and Other Uses

Value and Uses

1. It is rich in plant proteins, capable of eliminating heavy metals from the body, thus mitigating their potential harm to human health.
2. It is abundant in oligosaccharides and water-soluble dietary fiber, which increase the moisture content of feces, effectively preventing constipation and protecting against colorectal cancer.
3. It is rich in various vitamins and anthocyanins, offering antioxidant, anti-aging, blood vessel-softening, and cardiovascular protective effects. It provides dietary therapy benefits for conditions such as oral ulcers, dry eyes, prostatitis, and skin hyperpigmentation.
4. Its dried flowers can be eaten, brewed into tea, served in cold salads, stir-fried, stewed, or used to make soup, offering a rich aroma and high nutritional value.

**Nutritional Value** Not only is the Dragon Fruit flower beautiful, but it’s also edible, boasting a delicious taste and remarkable health benefits. The flower is rich in anthocyanins and pollen, characterized by high nutrition, low calories, low fat, and abundance in vitamins and amino acids.

The entire flower can be eaten raw or processed. When consumed raw, it provides a crisp and smooth texture, with a sweet and tasty flavor. When cooked, it maintains its sweet, crispy characteristics. Its soup offers a refreshing sweetness, and it’s an exceptional addition to a hot pot.

Steeping fresh flowers in boiling water or boiling them for several minutes, then adding rock sugar and cooling before drinking, yields a beverage more fragrant than chrysanthemum tea. The dried Dragon Fruit flower, stewed with old chicken or large bones, is a renowned dish in South China, popular for its unique taste.

Dragon Fruit dried flower tea is effective for cough relief, heat-clearing, vision improvement, and blood pressure reduction. When the beautiful Dragon Fruit flower blooms, it emits a striking fragrance. High in nutrition, low in calories, and rich in Vitamin C, the flower improves vision and reduces heat. It also helps prevent hypertension.

The unique mucus in the Dragon Fruit’s flowers and stems, due to their extremely low osmotic pressure, contains an abundance of nutritionally and therapeutically significant substances. The flowers possess heat-clearing, lung-moistening, and cough-suppressing properties, offering adjunctive therapy for tuberculosis, bronchitis, and cervical lymphadenitis.