Friday 30 September 2016

Why i love green

Green is a very common and wonderful colour looks nice on everything.
 
  1. green signifies balance and harmony. it is the great balancer of the heart and the emotions, creating equilibrium between the head and the heart. 
  2. Green is also the color of growth, the color of spring, of renewal and rebirth.
  3. green is the colour of nature and as they say when you are close to nature you are close to God
  4. green is the most common colour all over the world. 
  5. green is healthy. 
  6. Green is good for the health. the green pigment in plants(chlorophyll) is important to our health. it blocks carcinogenic effects within the body and protects DNA from damage caused by toxic molds like aflatoxin — very similar to way in which chlorophyll-rich chlorella has anticancer effects. it speeds up wound healing, improves liver detoxification,  digestion and weight control protects skin.
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    These are just a few reasons why i love green. you can add more.

Wednesday 21 September 2016

Solanum torvum: its benefits

the yoruba call it Ikanyanrin. it is also comon called bush garden egg.
Image result for solanum torvum medicinal usesThe plant is usually 2 or 3 m in height and 2 cm in basal diameter, but may reach 5m in height and 8 cm in basal diameter. The shrub usually has a single stem at ground level, but it may branch on the lower stem. The stem bark is gray and nearly smooth with raised lenticels. The inner bark has a green layer over an ivory color (Little and others 1974). The plants examined by the author, growing on firm soil, had weak taproots and well-developed laterals. The roots are white. Foliage is confined to the growing twigs.
The twigs are gray-green and covered with star-shaped hairs. The spines are short and slightly curved and vary from thick throughout the plant, including the leaf midrib, to entirely absent. The leaves are opposite or one per node, broadly ovate with the border entire or deeply lobed. The petioles are 1 to 6 cm long and the blades are 7 to 23 by 5 to 18 cm and covered with short hairs. The flowers are white, tubular with 5 pointed lobes, and grouped in corymbiform cymes. They are shed soon after opening.
The fruits are berries that grow in clusters of tiny green spheres (ca. 1 cm in diameter) that look like green peas. They become yellow when fully ripe. They are thin-fleshed and contain numerous flat, round, brown seeds (Howard 1989, Liogier 1995, Little and others 1974).
chemical constutuents
ruits contain sterolin (sitosterol-d-glucoside) and 0.1% gluco-alkaloid solasonine (Chopra et. al., 1992). Steriodal sapogenins - sisalagenone and torvogenin have also been isolated from fruits (Rastogi & Mehrotra, 1993). Leaves contain steroidal gluco-alkaloid, solasonine; steroidal sapogenins, neochlorogenin, neosolaspigenin and solaspigenin. They also contain triacontanol, tetratriacontainic acid, 3-tritriacontanone, sitosterol, stigmasterol and campesterol (Ghani, 2003).
USES
Image result for solanum torvum medicinal uses
In Nigeria planted around homes to prevent attack from snakes. The green fresh fruits are edible and used in Thai cuisine, as an ingredient in certain Thai curries or raw in certain Thai chili pastes (nam phrik). The plant is sedative, diuretic and digestive; used in the treatment of cough. Leaves are used as haemostatic. The fruits are eaten as a vegetable; good in enlarged spleen. The Marma take boiled fruits with rice at night for 2-3 days to expell thread-worms. Roots are useful in poulticing cracks in the foot heels. the leaves can be applied to wounds, cuts abscesses and swollen buboes. the leaf sap is useful for burns and as eye instillation to sedate epileptcs and most importantly the plant is a remedy for women's abdominal pains.
Image result for solanum torvum medicinal uses
Image result for solanum torvum medicinal uses
Image result for solanum torvum medicinal uses
dried seeds
Image result for solanum torvum medicinal uses

Friday 2 September 2016

Pepperfruit : its benefits

Scientific Name : Dennettia tripetala
Family : Annonaceae
Description :  Pepper fruit tree, is a well-known Nigerian spicy medicinal plant. It is an indigenous
medium sized or small woody shrub. It is commonly found in the rain-forest and occasionally in the savanna. The tree grows up to 12m-15m in height and 0.6m in girth, with a dense compact crown. The wood is soft, white coloured and prone to termite attack. It has a fibrous bark which has a strong
scent. The leaves are 3 – 6 inches long by 1.5–2.5 inches broad, elliptic to ovate, shortly acuminate broadly connate to rounded at the base. The flowers are light brown outside, reddish inside and usually in small clusters on the young or older wood. The fruits are green at first but eventually turns reddish pink when ripe with finger-like carpel constricted between the seeds.The wood is white
and soft which yields a good fuel wood. It is a pungent, pepperish, spicy medicinal plant that is characterised by greenish appearance when unripe but tends to be reddish or pinkish in colour when ripe. Pepper fruit tree thrives mainly in the Savannah and rainforest zones while the fruit usually ripens between April and May.

Benefits:  Pepper fruit seeds are essential for preparing food for newborn mothers immediately after childbirth as the spice aids uterus contraction. Pepper fruit can be used together with, piper guinense, utazi for hot soup preparations for new mothers. The fruit reduces the risk of blindness caused
by glaucoma. Edible mature pepper fruit is mostly chewed raw but can also be used for food preparations and for preparing herbal medicines. Both the fruits, leaves, roots and barks of the Dennettia tripetala plant are distinguished by their strong pungent, spicy and pepperish taste, fragrance and aroma (Achinewhu et al, 1995). Both the fruits, leaves and roots of the pepper fruit are useful for medicinal purposes Iwu (1989). Moreover, Egharevba et.al. (2015) also support that this fruit is effective for ethnomedical (traditional medical) purposes. Pepper fruit contains both volatile and essential oils. The taste, aroma and pungency of this fruit are as a result of its constituent of volatile and essential (oleoresins) oils.

This peppery taste tends to stimulate people when they chew it. The leaves, fruits and roots of the pepper fruit can be used for producing herbal medicines for treating gastrointestinal diseases such as stomach upset, diarrhoea, vomiting and worm infestation.