Good morning everyone. These is another tree with medicinal value found in the Philippines. I’m sure if many have this plant you can use it to cure some ailments. There are a total of 96 Philippine medicinal trees under 83 genera and 38 families. I want to share the most seen trees here.
Banaba is a deciduous tree growing from 5 to 20 m in height. The bark is smooth gray to cream-colored, and peels off in irregular flakes.
The leaves are smooth, oblong to elliptic-ovate and 12 to 25 cm long. The flowers are of six parts, purplish lilac or mauve-pink, rarely pink, 5 to 7.5 cm across and borne in large, terminal pinnules up to 40 cm in length.
Medicinal Value:
■ The old leaves and ripe fruit of banaba contain the greatest amount of an “insulin-like principle” (20 grams of old leaves or ripe fruits, dried from 1 to 2 weeks, in the form of 10 cm3 of 20% decoction), were found to have the equivalent to 6 to 7.7 units of insulin in lowering blood sugar.
■ The mature and young leaves, and flowers have an activity that ranged from 4.4 to 5.4 units of insulin per 100 cm3 of 205 decoctions or equivalent to around 70% of the activity of the leaves or fruits.
■ A decoction of the leaves of all ages is used for diabetes mellitus. It is prepared and taken like tea. Some Filipino doctors believe that a decoction of the dried full is even better.
Photo courtesy: hiroshima
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