Sea Holly

Sea Holly
Acanthus ilicifolius Linn.
ACANTHACEAE
---->The Sea holly (biological binomial term: Eryngium maritimum) is a species of Eryngium in the plant family Apiaceae and native to most European coastlines. In some ways it resembles a flowering thistle, in that its flower is burr-shaped, though these are metallic blue, rather than mauve. The protected dune plant grows to a height of 20 to 60 cm and although widespread it is considered endangered. So, for instance, in Germany its occurrence has been greatly reduced throughout and has become extinct in some regions.
---->In Elizabethan times in England, these were believed to a strong aphrodisiac. They are named in a speech by Falstaff:

---->"Let the sky rain potatoes;let it thunder to the tune of Green-sleeves,hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes [sea-holly],let there come a tempest of provocation..."
---->—Falstaff, Act 5, scene v, "The Merry Wives of Windsor", William Shakespeare

Sea holly was nominated the 2002 County flower for the city of Liverpool.

Saltbush

Saltbush
Acanthus ebracteatus Vahl
ACANTHACEAE

---->Atriplex (Á-tri-plex) is a plant genus of 100-200 species, known by the common names of saltbush and orache (or orach). The genus is quite variable and widely distributed. It includes many desert and seashore plants and halophytes, as well as plants of moist environments. The goosefoot subfamily (Chenopodioideae) of the Amaranthaceae, in which the genus Atriplex is placed in the APG II system, was formerly considered a distinct family (Chenopodiaceae).
---->Saltbushes are extremely tolerant of salt content in the ground: their name derives from the fact that they retain salt in their leaves, which makes them of great use in areas affected by soil salination.
---->Atriplex species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species; see the list of Lepidoptera which feed on Atriplex. For spiders such as Phidippus californicus and other arthropods, saltbush plants offer opportunities to hide and hunt in habitat that is otherwise often quite barren.

Use by humans
---->Many species are edible. However, the favored species for human consumption is Garden Orache (A. hortensis). Use of Atriplex as food is known since at least the late Epipaleolithic (Mesolithic). The Ertebølle culture presumably used Common Orache (A. patula) as a vegetable (A. patula is attested as an archaeophyte in northern Europe). In the biblical Book of Job, mallûḥa (מַלּ֣וּחַ, probably Mediterranean Saltbush, A. halimus, the major culinary saltbush in the region) is mentioned as food eaten by social outcasts (Job 30:4). Grey Saltbush (A. cinerea) is used as bushfood in Australia since prehistoric times. Chamiso (A. canescens) and Shadscale (A. confertifolia) were eaten by Native Americans, and Spearscale (A. hastata) was a food in rural Eurasia.

Murdannia loriformis

Murdannia loriformis (Hassk.) Rolla Rao et Kammathy
COMMELINACEAE

---->Commelinaceae is a botanical name for a family of flowering plants, also known as the spiderwort family. The family has always been recognized by most taxonomists.
---->The APG II system of 2003 (unchanged from the APG system of 1998), also recognizes this family, and assigns it to the order Commelinales in the clade commelinids in the monocots. The family counts several hundred species of herbaceous plants. Many are cultivated as ornamentals. The stems of these plants are generally well-developed, and often swollen at the nodes. Flowers are often short-lived, lasting for a day or less.

Tooth Brush Tree , Siamese Rough Bush

Siamese Rough Bush, Tooth Brush Tree
Streblus aspera Lour.
MORACEAE

---->Streblus asper is a tree known by several common names, including Siamese rough bush, khoi, and toothbrush tree. It is a medium-sized tree native to dry regions in Thailand, India, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
---->The leaves are 2 to 4 inches long, rigid, oval-shaped, irregularly toothed, and borne on small petioles. staminate flower heads are spherical with minute flowers. pistillate flowers have longer peduncles.
---->The tree has a number of uses. It has been important in papermaking in Thailand for seven hundred years. Virtually all of the ancient Thai documents still in existence are written on the bark of this tree. The Buddhist texts and official records from before the twentieth century in Thailand are known as khoi books. The paper is durable even in the local high-humidity climate. It does not burn easily and it is resistant to yellowing and insect damage. Today other fiber sources are used to make paper and khoi fibers are used primarily by artisans who produce paper using traditional techniques.

---->Various parts of the plant are used in Ayurveda and other folk medicines for the treatment of different ailments such as filariasis, leprosy, toothache, diarrhoea, and cancer. It is a well known and documented ethnomedicinal plant. Research carried out using different in vitro and in vivo techniques of biological evaluation support most of these claims. It has been used in the past as an oral hygiene product and for this reason it is also known as the toothbrush tree. A twig or stick about eight inches long with a frayed or mashed end to increase the cleaning surface was used as a tooth cleaning aid up until the middle of the twentieth century when the cheap and more practical plastic brush with a toothpaste become common throughout the world.
---->Different studies were carried on its antibacterial activity upon various microorganisms involving oral and nasopharyngeal infections and especially Streptococcus mutans. An extract of Strebulus asper leaves have demonstrated to possess a selective bactericidal activity towards Streptococcus, especially to S. mutans which has been shown to be strongly linked with dental caries.
---->The Khoi wood is used throughout South-East Asia as an ingredient mixed with cannabis which reduces the throat irritation associated with inhaling cannabis smoke through a water pipe or bong.

Chaulmoogra

Chaulmoogra
Hydnoccarpus anthelminthicus
Pierre

FLACOURTIACEAE
---->Reaching a height of 50 to 60 feet, the chaulmoogra tree bears brown, velvety, round fruit and irregular grayish seeds that are angled with blunt ends. Chaulmoogra oil can also come from Tarak-togenos kurzii, an allied species.
---->Leprosy. The word has struck terror in human hearts since the beginnings of recorded history. As carriers of an incurable disease, thought to be highly communicable, lepers have been outcasts. Small wonder, for the ravages of leprosy were horrifying-in advanced cases, faces would be eaten away, bodies covered with rotting sores, fingers and toes falling off. At various periods of European history victims were killed, or required to wear bells so people could avoid them, or isolated in nightmarish leper colonies.
---->And yet a treatment has existed for thousands of years. Ancient Hindu and Chinese documents described an oil that was effective against the disease, and reports of the treatment occasionally reached Western ears. Not until about the middle of the last century, however, was the miraculous chaulmoogra oil taken seriously by Western physicians; chaulmoogra was investigated and tested, and soon it was being imported from China. But the supply was severely limited, and its source remained a mystery.
---->In 1920, an adventurous botanist named Joseph Rock arrived in Singapore to begin his search for the tree that was said to be the source of the oil. He knew the chaulmoogra tree existed, but he did not know what it looked like, where it grew, or how it yielded the valuable oil. To find out, he wandered Far Eastern hinterlands, climbing mountains and exploring jungle lowlands. Finally he found seeds for sale in native markets in India. They came, he found, from a tall, leathery-leaved tree with large white flowers (in fact, three species supplied the seeds, the most important of which was later called H. wightiana). Rock collected a large supply of seeds and sent them to Hawaii, where a plantation was established to supply the world with chaulmoogra oil.
---->Rock himself, having become enthralled by the Orient, returned to the Far East and spent nearly 30 years in the mountainous region near the Chinese-Tibetan border. He sent thousands of unknown plants and birds to Western museums and botanical gardens, and eventually he translated more than 8,000 books from the obscure Na-Khi language of the region into English. Driven out by the Chinese Communist revolution, he went to Hawaii, where he died in 1962.
---->Chaulmoogra contains strongly antibacterial chemicals, two of which, hydnocarpic and chaulmoogric acids, are responsible for destroying the bacterium, Mycobacterium leprae, that causes leprosy. In Indian medicine, the oil has also been used to treat intestinal worms and skin diseases. In many places today, the ingredients of chaulmoogra oil, modified by chemists, are still used to cure early cases of leprosy-advanced cases do not yield to the treatment -but they have generally been replaced by synthesized sulfones.

PARTS USED
---->Seed.

USES
---->According to a pre- Buddhist legend, a Burmese king stricken with leprosy voluntarily exiled himself to the jungle. There, he chose to reside in a hollow tree and heal himself by eating the fruit and leaves of Taraktogenos kurzii, or the "Kalaw" tree. Chaulmoogra was later identified as a source of chaulmoogra oil, an age-old leprosy treatment.
---->A physician is reported to have used chaulmoogra oil in ancient Egypt. Another early reference to the oil was made in the writings of the Sushrata Samhitas, dating back to 600 B.C. in India. The oil has long been widely employed as an accepted treatment for leprosy in China and India. Americans sought out chaulmoogra in the early 20th century until the development of a synthetic anti-leprosy medication in 1941. Botanist Joseph F. Rock brought the oil to the United States when he returned from an expedition in the hinterlands of the East that had been sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In recent times, the efficacy of chaulmoogra in treating leprosy has been challenged.

HABITAT AND CULTIVATION
---->Chaulmoogra is native to the tropical areas of Malaysia and the Indian subcontinent.