Maya Srubs Piñuela Yucateca

By Liliana Usvat    
Blog 342-365 
 

Piñuela Yucateca (Spanish) Jo’oyok or X' hoyoc (Maya), Morinda yucatanensis Greenm,  Rubiaceae Family, slender shrub with narrow elliptic leafs inflorescent clusters of pale off-white small five petal flowers in sessile globosely clusters at leaf axils; small fruits shaped like mini-cactus bumps, yellow when riped. "Piñuela Yucateca" shrubs grow commonly entangled with other plants.
 

Medicinal Uses
Mayan healers use this medicinal plant for digestive system healings and for Mayan "evil wind ailments.
 
At one time it was thought that plants from the Yucatán were a distinct species and were given the binomial Morinda yucatanensis. However, now Yucatán's plants are considered the same as Morinda royoc, and Morinda royoc is an old Linnaeus name, worthy of being preserved.
 
You can see why one of the many English names used for the vine is Mouse's Pineapple. The pineapple is formed by the close clustering of numerous maturing inferior flower ovaries. Inferior ovaries are those from which the calyx's sepals, the corolla and the stamens arise above the ovary, not at the ovary's base, in which case it would be a superior ovary. 

Mayan Trees Trumpet Tree Useful for Diabetis Bronchitis and Snakebites

By Liliana Usvat    
Blog 341-365

Trumpet Tree (English) Guarombo (Spanish)Cecropia obtusifolia Bertol, Yagrumo hembra Cecropiaceae Family. Native to Mexico. Guarombo trees grows wild in Yucatan. 

Description

The tree trunk is thin hollow and has large leaflets; bats and birds propagated seeds.  

Cecropia obtusifolia is a species of plant in the Urticaceae family. It is found in Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and Panama. Common Names include trumpet tree, pop-a-gun, tree-of-laziness, and snakewood tree

Medicinal Uses
 
Highly regarded by J-Men Maya Healers by its healing property. Mexico's IMSS (Federal Medical System) recognizes the Guarombo extract as a highly effective hypoglycemic treatment on Type 2 Diabetic patients; other nations are Cuba and Brazil.

The trumpet tree or embauba is widely used in traditional medicine throughout Central and South America.
 
Virtually every part is used – bark, roots, sap, leaves and fruit – to treat a diversity of ailments. Each country has different uses for extracts of this plant, such as treatment for bronchitis and snakebites in Trinidad and a cure for diabetes and hypertension in Guatemala.

Recent scientific research on the trumpet tree has shown potential for treating obesity, as well as bacterial infections and cancer. The tree is regularly used throughout the world by herbalists for treating respiratory disorders and diabetes.
 
Cecropia obtusifolia has vasorelaxant activity due possibly to inhibition of angiotensin

Many other species of the genus Cecropia share the folk reputation of curing heart failure, cough, asthma and bronchitis
 

Crawling with ants

In the wild, these trees are almost always inhabited by biting Azteca ants. The tree and ants form a mutually beneficially relationship where the ants, living in hollow steps and leaf surface, defend the tree from attackers such as leaf-cutter ants and other herbivores. Meanwhile, the ant benefits from shelter and a sugary food produced by the tree on the underside of leaf stalks.

 Reforestation

 
Seedling Development- Seeds require full sunlight for successful germination. Thus, seeds present on the floor of closed forests germinate only when some type of canopy gap occurs. Given full light conditions, germination may be as high as 80 to 90 percent (3,16,26). Germination is epigeal and in an open field was shown to be reduced by the presence of a layer of leaf litter. Other factors that may interact with increased light intensity in promoting germination include higher surface soil temperatures, fluctuations in air temperature, and changes in soil moisture.

Seed Production and Dissemination- Although as many as 15,000 flowers may be produced per inflorescence, the number of seeds that mature fully may be as low as 18 percent, or 2,725 viable seeds per inflorescence. Seed production by a mature tree during one reproductive year has been estimated to be as high as I million (13,26). Seed production is size or age specific, however, and increases throughout the lifetime of the tree.

These species frequent both open and forested areas, so that seeds are dispersed widely and are available in forest soil in the event of a disturbance (12). As many as 398 seeds per square meter (37/ft²) have been reported to be present in undisturbed lower montane rain forest soil (2,26). Blum (3) reported that yagrumo hembra seedlings grew in 4 to 10 soil samples taken from mature forests in Panama. Other secondary species such as yagrumo macho, cachimbo comun (Psychotria berteriana), and guano were also present in these soils.

Jabin Trees Used for Arthritis Headache Back Pain Insomnia

By Liliana Usvat    
Blog 340-365 

Names
Dogwood Tree (English) Jabin  or Habin (Maya), Florida fishpoison tree, Piscidia piscipula, Fabaceae family. 

Description

Native to Yucatan Peninsula, Florida and Caribbean.  Jabin (Ja'abin) trees reach up to 20 meters tall; leaflets are elliptic in shape and alternated pinnately compounds; small pale lilac-pink  flowers; pendant paper thin seed pods are pale cream colored and four winged with rippled edges. 

 
Since Habims are members of the Bean Family the fruits are legumes. The dangling legumes themselves are very slender, but each legume bears four paper-thin, fin- like "wings." A typical four-winged legume with its pedicel emerging from a cuplike calyx.

Medicinal Uses 

* Arthritis 
* Headache/Migraine 
 * Nerve/Back Pain 
 * Pain Relief 
* Sleep/Insomnia


Jabin tree bark is highly used by Mayan J-Men healers as a medicinal Mayan plant specially to help female's menstrual cycles.  Wood is heavy resistant to decay; its root bark extracts are medicinal as analgesic and antispasmodic properties. 
 
It has been used in herbal medicine for treating nervous conditions and pain
The tree has medicinal value as an analgesic and sedative.
The bark extracts may have potential for their anti-inflammatory, sedative, and antispasmodic effects.
Piscidia is a very serviceable pain medicine, especially for general body pains (such as after an accident or a jousting tournament) and as an adjunct for skeletal muscle pain. Its sedative effects are minimal which makes it useful for daily use as it does not impair the cognitive process.
 
Piscidia is that it is well tolerated with unwanted side effects being uncommon. This gives more room to play around with dosages when using it for treating pain.

Formulation and Combinations

Depending on what you are using it for, Piscidia combines well with other medicinal plants. It has an ‘adjunct’ quality, meaning it seems to increase the medicinal effects of other plants as well as having its own amplified when they are used together. Two specific plants  works particularly well with for pain are Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora) and Hops (Humulus lupulus). The following are some helpful combinations.

• For skeletal muscle pain; Skullcap, Pedicularis (Pedicularis spp.), Black cohosh (Actaea racemosa) and Willow (Salix spp.)
• For insomnia due to body aches; Skullcap, Valerian (Valeriana officinalis), Wild lettuce (Lactuca spp.) and Hops.
• For a recent injury; Valerian, Kava kava (Piper methysticum) and Wild lettuce.

Piscidia does not have obvious antiinflammatory effects, but since inflammation is a common factor in pain, it can be combined with antiinflammatories such as Willow, Licorice (Glycyrrhiza spp), Arnica (Arnica spp.), Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) and Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) to help reduce the sensation of pain while the above herbs decrease inflammation.

 
Bees

 Its blooms are an important source of pollen and nectar for bees in Yucatan, Mexico. Bees are blind to red, and to them orange, yellow and green are the same color –- yellow. 
Therefore, a honeybee visiting a white Habim flower with a green spot will see a flower with a yellow spot.

Reforestation Restoration of Soil
 
In one of those occasionally flooded areas near the mangroves with very thin to nonexistent soil atop limestone rock where regular trees give way to cacti, agaves and scrub usually less than head high, a dry-season-leafless, woody bush has been prolifically producing clusters of white flowers.

Piscidia piscipula can flower so abundantly when it's only knee high, and apparently live its life as a bush.  These scrubby, flowering ones might be a subspecies adapted to areas of very thin, dry soil.

Trivia

Indigenous peoples all over the world used local poisonous plants to aid in catching fish, and because of this many plants bear common names descriptive of this use.Within its natural range, Native Americans used an extract from the bark, roots, twigs, and leaves of Florida fishpoison tree to sedate fish, making them easier to catch. A number of chemicals present in the tree's tissues are toxic to fish, the principal one being the well-known rotenone

Links

http://www.backyardnature.net/yucatan/jabim.htm

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/356558495468320686/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piscidia_piscipula

http://7song.com/blog/2014/03/jamaican-dogwood-piscidia-piscipula-2014/ 

http://www.anniesremedy.com/herb_detail306.php