Yerba de faja

Overview

Native to SE. Mexico to tropical America, widely naturalized throughout most of the rest of the tropics. The plant is harvested from the wild as a local source of food and medicines. It is cultivated for its edible leaves in Nigeria.

Vernacular Names

Portebandeau (French).

Agroecology

S. sparganophora is a frequent weed of slightly shaded, moist sites, roadsides, river banks, and waste places, often a weed in banana plantations, up to 700 m altitude. Moist alluvial or sandy soil along streams or in flood plains.

Morphology

• Stems - can be simple or much-branched.
• Leaves - alternate, subsessile or shortly petioled, elliptical or oblong-obovate, 5-16 cm long, sub-entire to shallowly crenate-serrate, glandular.
• Flowers - all tubular, corolla white or pale violet; anthers sagittate; pappus an irregularly dentate cup.

Cultivation

• Generative propagation is by seed.
• Vegetative propagation is by stem cuttings.

Chemical Constituents

Alkaloid, tannin, saponins, phlobatannin, luteolin, antrakuinon, beta caryophyllene, germacrene A, a- humulene, germacrene D, selinene, atsiri oil.

Traditional Medicinal Uses

• The microbial inhibitory activity of the leaf of was investigated against Gram-positive, Gram-negative bacteria and fungi.
• The antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of the extracts were subsequently determined.
• The crude extract is also reported to possess central nervous system depressant activities.
• The leaves has caused cell death of melanoma and ovarian cancer cell lines. 
• Decoction of the stem and root are employed in the treatment of headaches, gonorrhea, and also used as an antidote for poisons.
• In the Sao Tome and Principe island, it is used for the treatment ofmalaria and measles.
• A tea made from the whole plant is taken as a treatment for headaches,colds, wheezing, asthma and backache.
• The juice of the whole plant is rubbed on cuts and ulcers.
• The leaves are used to treat children's convulsions. The juice of theleaves is administered orally or rectally for treating thrush.