Recently, the topic "A man bought Nostoc online and found that it was a national protected plant" became a hot search topic. A consumer in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, purchased the product online and suspected that it was wild Nostoc after receiving the product, so he called the police. After identification, this vegetable belongs to the national first-level protected wild plants. What is Nostoc? Is it edible? Why is it a national first-level protected wild plant?
Recently, a dish that looks like hair has become popular. It’s popular not because it’s delicious, but because it’s illegal to sell it. Recently, a consumer in Jiangsu purchased Nostoc online. He suspected that it was wild Nostoc. More importantly, he knew that wild Nostoc was not allowed to be sold, so he called the police. The police conducted a thorough investigation and found Ding, an online store operator in Ningxia, and seized more than 600 grams of wild Nostoc on site. Wei Jixia, a judge of the Grand Canal Environmental Resources Tribunal of the Economic Development Zone Court of Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province, said that wild Nostoc is a national first-level protected wild plant.
Wei Jixia: Most of the nostoc we usually buy is seaweed or imitation nostoc synthesized from algae raw materials, which can be eaten normally. However, the nostoc collected, purchased, and sold by the defendant in this case grows in the desert grasslands of the northwest and is a national first-level protected wild plant.
The scientific name of Nostoc is Nostoc. Although the name contains the word "vegetable", it is not a plant, but a type of bacteria, belonging to the phylum Cyanobacteria. Because this type of bacteria can perform photosynthesis and many species live in water, they were also habitually called "cyanobacteria" in the past.
Liu Bing, associate researcher at the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that Nostoc is very small and is a single-celled prokaryotic organism invisible to the naked eye. Many cells are connected together to form a bead-like filamentous colony, forming a swarm visible to the naked eye.
Liu Bing: It belongs to a type of Nodida among cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria are a type of bacteria capable of photosynthesis. It belongs to the bacterial kingdom. Strictly speaking, it is not a plant. Cyanobacteria can be made up of many individual cells gathered into an aggregate that becomes visible to the naked eye. But they each live independently.
In my country, Nostoc is mainly produced in arid and semi-arid areas of Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, and Shaanxi. Liu Bing further said that some "relatives" of Nostoc are foods we are familiar with, such as Dipi Cai, Ge Xian Rice, etc., and their distribution range is wider.
Liu Bing: The more common one we see is its "relative" called Nodida vulgaris. That is what we call ground vegetables among the people. It can grow not only in the northwest, but also in the northeast, north China, and southwest. Dipicai is not like "strand by strand" like Nostoc. It grows into spherical blocks, or sometimes looks like fungus. That is more abundant and more common than Nostoc in the wild. It is not a nationally protected wild plant.
Why can Dipicai and Gexinmi be eaten normally, but Nostoc is a national first-level protected wild plant that needs to be protected? This has to do with the way it looks like hair strands. Facai has become a popular ingredient in some areas because of its homophonic pronunciation of "facai". Nostoc once became a relatively expensive food ingredient, which also led to large-scale mining activities in some areas of northwest my country. However, Liu Bing pointed out that harvesting nostoc is not as simple as picking ground vegetables.
Liu Bing: When collecting common Nodida, just pick it up by hand. But Nostoc is close to the ground, so it is difficult to pick it up. When picking, many people may take a rake or a shovel, directly removing the moss and soil growing on the ground. This will damage the environment of the desert area and cause soil erosion.
Nostoc is known as the "Treasure of the Gobi". It has the ability to fix nitrogen and can provide natural nitrogen fertilizer for the soil. It is also resistant to high temperatures and colds, and has strong drought resistance. It can play a role in windbreak and sand fixation in the desert. Large-scale mining of Nostoc not only destroys the desert environment, but also leads to less and less Nostoc.
Wei Jixia, a judge of the Grand Canal Environmental Resources Court of the Economic Development District Court of Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province, pointed out: If this type of Nostoc is excavated in a large area, it will seriously destroy the grassland topsoil and vegetation root systems, leading to grassland degradation and land desertification, destroying the local fragile desert grassland ecosystem, and exacerbating sandstorms.
In 2000, the State Council issued a notice explicitly requiring a ban on the collection of Nostoc and the purchase, processing and sale of Nostoc and its products. In 2001, relevant departments further adjusted the protection level of Nostoc from national second-level to national first-level. In the new version of the "List of National Key Protected Wild Plants" released in 2021, Nostoc is still listed as a national first-level protected wild plant.
Since we are protecting wild plants, why are they still sold online? The reporter searched for "Nostoc" on the online shopping platform and found that most of them sell Nostoc, which looks similar to Nostoc, and Nostoc is a red algae that mainly grows in temperate and tropical oceans. It is cultivated artificially in coastal areas of my country, with large yields and easy acquisition. Some merchants may sell wild Nostoc under the banner of Haifa. It should be emphasized that it is illegal to collect and sell wild Nostoc cabbage, which requires criminal liability and ecological compensation.
For consumers, Liu Bing, associate researcher at the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, reminded: Eating wild animals and plants inherently carries certain risks. If you don't know anything about it, it's best to eat as little wild food as possible. Another thing is, if you really want to eat it, eat ground vegetables. The taste is similar. The chemical composition inside is similar. For our human body, the nutritional content is also similar.
