Philippine Medicinal Plants

English: Pawpaw, Papaya
Tagalog: Papaya

Papaya is a fruit tree found throughout the Philippines, mostly cultivated. The native species grows mostly wild on Mt. Banahaw. Papaya is one of our four “power herbs” having a long history and proof of being a very effective medicinal plant. The leaves, fruits, stem and roots all contain the proteolytic enzyme papain. Exhaustive studies have been done on papain, and it is reported to be a true, soluble, digestive ferment or a mixture of ferments of vegetable origin, its proteolytic action marked in acid, alkaline, and neutral solutions and also in the presence of many chemicals, antiseptics, and therapeutic agents. It has a peculiar softening and disintegrating actions in proteids, and its general proteolytic action is that of a genuine digestive ferment, similar to that of the ferments of animal origin.

It acts in the way rennet does upon milk, and has a pronounced digestive power at a wide range of temperatures. Papain is used effectively as an anthelmintic. The leaves are often employed as a remedy for asthma, and said to also be a heart tonic. The flowers have pectoral properties. The fruit is used in cosmetics for a healthy skin complexion. The green fruit is laxative and diuretic. Studies at the University of Nigeria have revealed that extracts of ripe and unripe papaya fruits and of the seeds are active against gram-positive bacteria. Strong doses are effective against gram-negative bacteria. The substance has protein-like properties.

English: Yacon
Tagalog: Yakon

There is now a new root crop that goes by the unusual name yacon. Recognized as a health food, it is also known as the apple of the earth because although it is grown underground like any other root crop, its fruit resembles an apple or a pear. Also, unlike regular root crops whose carbohydrate content eventually turns to starch, then sugar, when ingested, the yacon stores carbohydrates in the form of inulin and not starch. High in inulin, it serves as a sucrose-free food for diabetics.

The yacon is also low in calories, thus making it a good, nutritious diet food. While a sweet potato contains 125 calories, a potato 77 calories and a taro 60 calories per 100grams, the yacon has only 54 calories. It contains carbohydrates (oligo-fuctans),which pass through the digestive tract unmetabolized, so that it is perfect for those who suffer from obesity. Add to this the fact that the yacon purifies the blood and whose high-fiber content assists in digestion.

Read the rest of this entry »

English: Barbados nut, bubble bush, physic nut, purging nut;
Tagalog: Tuba Bakod

Physic nut is a drought resistant shrub that grows up to 20′ tall under favorable condition with spreading branches.

There are male – and female plant of Jatropha curcas.
The black thin shelled seeds are considered toxic; they contain the toxalbumin curcin and this make them fatally toxic.

Read the rest of this entry »

English: Croton Oil Plant
Tagalog: Tuba

An erect or more or less spreading shrub or very small tree.

• Leaves: alternate, ovate 7 to 12 cm in length, usually somewhat rounded at the base, pointed at the tip and toothed at the margins.
• Flowers: very small and borne on terminal inflorescence, with the female flowers situated toward the base of each inflorescence.
• Fruits: capsules, ellipsoid, or obscurely 3-angled, 1.5 to 2 cm long and contains a single seed. Seed: ovoid or oblong, 12 to 15 mm in length and 3-angled, the testa dark-brown or blackish, thin and brittle and of faint odor; the albumen and the embryo are yellowish. Seeds are at first mild in taste and subsequent acrid and pungent.

Read the rest of this entry »

English: Lemon grass
Tagalog: Tanglad

Tanglad is a grass and is cultivated throughout the Philippines. It is a popular ingredient in herbal teas and herbal soaps. It is used to aid digestion, for stomach problems and to reduce fevers.

Lemon Grass, common name for several species of grasses originating in Africa and Asia, used for culinary, medicinal, and cosmetic purposes. Although traditionally used in India and South East Asia, Lemon Grass is now widely cultivated in tropical America, Africa, Australia, and the Caribbean. The leaves and base of this tender perennial are used as a food flavouring, particularly in fish and poultry dishes, and its essential oils are used medicinally. Its distinctive flavour balances hot chillies and contributes to the elaborate, multi-layered flavours of many dishes in South East Asian cuisine.

Read the rest of this entry »

English: Thorn apple
Tagalog: Talumpunay

Thorn Apple, also called jimsonweed in the United States, common name for a plant native to North America and now naturalized around the world. The plant is a large annualherb with conspicuous white-to-purple flaring, tubular flowers up to 10 cm (4 in) long and large, round, spiny fruits. The alkaloids, produced in the leaves, seeds, and other parts of the plant, are poisonous; eating them can result in convulsions, coma, and even death.

Scientific classification: Thorn apple belongs to the family Solanaceae. It is classified as Datura stramonium.

English: Eggplant
Tagalog: talong

Talong is cultivated throughout the Philippines, and is common on Mt. Banahaw. In the Philippines, the Talong roots are taken as a decoction internally as an antiasthmatic and general stimulant. The roots are also used in treatment of skin diseases.

English: Indian hydocotyle
Tagalog: Takip-kohol

• A prostrate, creeping sparingly hairy or nearly smooth herb. The stems rooting at the nodes.
• Leaves: rounded to reniform, 2 to 5 cm wide, horizontal, more or less cupped, rounded at the tip, and kidney-shaped or heart-shaped at the base, palmately veined, scalloped margins, the rounded lobes often overlapping. Petioles erect, 3 to 20 cm and long.
• Flowers: petals dark-purple, ovate, and about 1 long. Peduncles occur in pairs or threes, less than 1 cm long and usually bear 3 sessile flowers. Flowering October to May.
• Fruits: minute, ovoid, white or green, and reticulate, each with 9 subsimilar longitudinal ridges
• 5 carpels, cylindric compressed, about 2.5 mm long, white or green, reticulate. Ovary inferior. Stamens 5, epigynous.

Read the rest of this entry »

English: Tobacco
Tagalog: Tabako

Tobacco has a long history of use by medical herbalists as a relaxant, though since it is a highly additive drug it is seldom employed internally or externally at present.

The leaves are antispasmodic, discutient, diuretic, emetic, expectorant, irritant, narcotic, sedative and sialagogue. They are used externally in the treatment of rheumatic swelling, skin diseases and scorpion stings. The plant should be used with great caution, when taken internally it is an addictive narcotic. The active ingredients can also be absorbed through the skin.

Read the rest of this entry »

English: Yam bean
Tagalog: Singkamas

a Central American climbing plant of the pea family, which has been cultivated for its edible tubers (jicama) since pre-Columbian times.