Month: August 2011

Agoago – herbal medicine

AGOAGO

 

 LORANTHUS PENTANDRUS Linn.

Loranthus crassus Hook. F.

Loranthus farinosus Griff.

Loranthus farinosus Desv.

Loranthus venosus Bl.

Loranthus flavus Bl.

Loranthus rigidus DC.

Loranthus shawianus Elm.

Loranthus zimmermanni Warb.

Dendrophthoe farinosus Mart.

Dendrophthoe luscobotrya Miq.

Dendrophthoe venosus Mart.

Dendrophthoe pentandra Miq.

Scurrula venosa G. Don

Scurrula pentandra G. Don.

Elytranthe rigida G. Don.

Elytranthe farinosa G. Don.

 

Local names: Agoago (Tagb.); bogto (Tagb.).

 

Agoago is found on trees at low and medium altitudes in Zambales Province, Luzon; and in Palawan. It also occurs from India to southern China and southward to Sumatra, Java, and Borneo.

 

The plant has strong, gray, and terete branches. The leaves are rarely opposite, petioled, elliptic-oblong or lanceolate, and rarely obovate, 5 to 20 centimeters long, and 2.5 to 12 centimeters wide, with pointed or nearly obtuse apex. The flowers are in densely crowded, scurfy, axillary, very short recemes, and about 1.5 centimeters long. The bracts are cupular. The calyx tube is cylindrical to urceolate and 1.5 to 2 millimeters long, the calyx-limb is 5-toothed. The corolla is straight, with the tube dilated below and equally 5-cleft at the middle; and with linear, pointed lobes. The fruit is oblong-ovoid, 10 millimeters in length, and 6 millimeters in diameter.

 

Wester records that the stem with leaves contains a glucoside, quercitrine (C7H20O11); and that the wax, on saponification, yields melissylalcohol.

According to Burkill the leaves are pounded and made into a poultice for small cores, ulcers, etc. Burkill and Haniff report that a decoction of the leaves is administered in Perak after childbirth, as a protective medicine.

Source:BPI

AFRICAN SAUSAGE TREE

 

AFRICAN SAUSAGE TREE

 

 KINGELIA AFRICANA (Lam.) Benth.

Kigelia aethiopica Decne

Kigelia pinnata DC.

 

Local names: African sausage tree, cucumber tree (Engl.).

 

The African sausage tree is found in cultivation in Manila and in Los Baños, Laguna Province. It is a native of West Tropical Africa.

 

This recently introduced plant is a wide-spreading, deciduous tree about 10 meters in height. The leaves are alternate and odd pinnate. The leaflets are opposite, ovate to elliptic-ovate, 8 to 16 centimeters long, and pointed or blunt at the tip. The flowers are red, noctural, and borne in panicles on very long, pendulous pedicels. The calyx is 2.5 to 3 centimeters long, usually 5-toothed, or lobed. The corolla is 10 to 12 centimeters long, the tube is rather slender and the limb, broadly bell-shaped, somewhat curved, and 5-lobed. The fruit is hard, grayish-brown, scurfy, large, oblong or oblong-cylindric, 20 to 30 centimeters in length, indehiscent, and hanging on very long peduncles. Continue reading “AFRICAN SAUSAGE TREE”

AFRICAN OIL PALM

AFRICAN OIL PALM

 

 

ELAEIS GUINEENSIS jacq.

 

Local name: African oil palm (Engl.).

 

The African oil palm was brought into the Philippines some time the middle of the last century. It is cultivated in the Manila and in larger towns as an ornamental. Seeds of improved strains were introduced by the author in 1938 from Kuala Lumpur and are now grow by the Bureau of Plant Industry. It is grown extensively in west in West Africa, its original home, and in Malaya, Sumatra, Java, India, and the United State.

 

The trunk is erect, attaining a height of 4 of 10 meters. The leaves are numerous, and 3 to 3.5 meters long. The petioles are broad, and are armed on the sides with spinescent, reduced leaves. The leaflets are numerous, linear-lanceolate, nearly 1 meter long, 2 or 4 meters wide. The male inflorescence in dense, having numerous, cylindric spikes which are 7 to 12 centimeters long and about 1 centimeters in diameters; their rachises excurrent as a stout awn. The female inflorescences is dense, branched, 20 to 30 centimeters long, and the flowers densely disposed. The fruit is borne in large dense masses.

 

The palm yields two kinds of oil: the palm oil and palm-kernel oil. The palm oil is chiefly used for manufacture of soaps and candles. It consists principally of palmitin and olein. The palm-kernel oil is used for making vegetable butter. According to Burkill the kernel oil consists chiefly of the glyceride of lauric acid, together with palmitic, oleic and myristic acid, some caprylic acids and capric acid and phytosterin. In Africa much wine is made from the trees. For details of chemical constituents, see Wehmer.

The palm is not known medically in the Philippines. However, Caius reports that in Guinea the oil is applied to wounds as a vulnerary. It is used also as a liniment for rheumatism and courbature. The bubis of the Island of Fernando  make an excellent poultice of the oil, which is applied to wounds. In Equatorial West Africa. According to him, the roots are used as a diuretic and the fresh sap, as a laxative.

Source:  BPI

Alodia scandal

For those who are really looking for an Alodia scandal or Alodia sex scandal, sorry to say that the currently circulating picture of miss Alodia in a very provocative position wearing only a necktie and lingerie is definitely due to the magic of photoshop.

The culprit? The Alodia Haters?  or The Alodia obsessed? Anyway for sure it will generate some buzz…..

Wait a few days and maybe a  nude pic or even pene type of picture will appear