By Liliana Usvat
Blog 350-365
Red Gumbo limbo (English), Chakah or Sip' che' (Maya), Bursera simaruba, Burseraceae family. Red Gumbo Limbo is native to the Americas; a deciduous tree most notable for it’s peeling deep reddish bark, and soft wood, nowadays use by Maya carvers. Chaca's small white bloom clusters grow in spring and winter.
This Gumbo limbo can be propagated by just planting young branches to the ground, Maya people use it as posts for fencing their parcels that with time become mature trees. The Red Gumbo limbo or Chaca tree has a high salty soil tolerance and many medicinal qualities used by Maya healers in tea fusions, oils and anti-inflammatory ointments.
This large deciduous tree is most notable for it’s peeling reddish bark.
People use its resin as glue, varnish, water-repellent coating, and incense. Gumbo-limbo is considered medicinal nearly everyplace it grows.
TRIBAL AND HERBAL MEDICINE USES
Reforestation
One reason the tree is so commonly encountered is that it's a tough, adaptable species able to endure many abuses. Just poke a stick of it into the ground, it roots, and makes a new tree.
Cut off a branch, stick it in the ground, and it will grow. People still make photosynthesizing fences by planting a row of branches.
Propagation is by seed which germinates readily if fresh but, most often, gumbo-limbo is propagated by cuttings of any size twig or branch. Huge truncheons (up to 12 inches in diameter) are planted in the ground where they sprout and grow into a tree.
Be sure to properly prune and train a tree grown in this fashion, since many sprouts often develop along the trunk after planting. A tree left to grow in this manner usually develops weak branches which may fall from the tree as it grows older. Space major branches out along the main trunk to create a strong tree. It is probably best to plant seed-grown trees or those propagated from smaller, more traditionally-sized cuttings.
Blog 350-365
Red Gumbo limbo (English), Chakah or Sip' che' (Maya), Bursera simaruba, Burseraceae family. Red Gumbo Limbo is native to the Americas; a deciduous tree most notable for it’s peeling deep reddish bark, and soft wood, nowadays use by Maya carvers. Chaca's small white bloom clusters grow in spring and winter.
This Gumbo limbo can be propagated by just planting young branches to the ground, Maya people use it as posts for fencing their parcels that with time become mature trees. The Red Gumbo limbo or Chaca tree has a high salty soil tolerance and many medicinal qualities used by Maya healers in tea fusions, oils and anti-inflammatory ointments.
This large deciduous tree is most notable for it’s peeling reddish bark.
People use its resin as glue, varnish, water-repellent coating, and incense. Gumbo-limbo is considered medicinal nearly everyplace it grows.
TRIBAL AND HERBAL MEDICINE USES
Rosita Arvigo reports that the bark is a common topical remedy in Belize
for skin affections like skin
sores, measles, sunburn, insect bites and rashes. A bark decoction is
also taken internally for urinary tract infections, pain, colds, flu,
sun stroke, fevers and to purify the blood.
A strip of bark about 4 -5
cm x 30 cm is boiled in a gallon of water for 10 minutes for this local
remedy and then used topically or drunk as a tea.
When someone sprained an ankle or pulled a muscle,
gumbo limbo resin was applied to the affected area. I guess you just spread the sap on your skin
and stick some leaves to it, twice a day, with meals.
| Bahamas | for aches(back), debility, hunger, impotency, rashes, strains; as an aphrodisiac |
| Belize | for colds, blood cleansing, fevers, flu, insect bites, measles, rashes, skin sores, sun stroke, sunburn, urinary tract infections |
| Dominican Republic | for cystitis, intestinal problems, nephritis |
| Guatemala | for aches(stomach), bite(snake), gangrene |
| Haiti | as an antiseptic diuretic, insect repellant; for calculus, diarrhea, nephritis Sore, Vulnerary |
| Mexico | for asthma, bite(snake), colic, dropsy, dysentery, enterorrhagia, fevers, stomachaches, swelling, venereal diseases, yellow fever; as an diaphoretic, diuretic, expectorant, purgative |
| Peru | as an analgesic, blood purifier, diaphoretic, expectorant, insecticide; for rheumatism |
| Venezuela | for cancer(stomach), corns, debility, hernia, rheumatism |
| Elsewhere | for aches(stomach), muscle fatigue, obesity, renitis, rheumatism, tumors, venereal diseases, wounds |
Reforestation
One reason the tree is so commonly encountered is that it's a tough, adaptable species able to endure many abuses. Just poke a stick of it into the ground, it roots, and makes a new tree.
Cut off a branch, stick it in the ground, and it will grow. People still make photosynthesizing fences by planting a row of branches.
Propagation is by seed which germinates readily if fresh but, most often, gumbo-limbo is propagated by cuttings of any size twig or branch. Huge truncheons (up to 12 inches in diameter) are planted in the ground where they sprout and grow into a tree.
Be sure to properly prune and train a tree grown in this fashion, since many sprouts often develop along the trunk after planting. A tree left to grow in this manner usually develops weak branches which may fall from the tree as it grows older. Space major branches out along the main trunk to create a strong tree. It is probably best to plant seed-grown trees or those propagated from smaller, more traditionally-sized cuttings.
