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Moringa peregrine

Botanical Name : Moringa peregrine
Family :Moringaceae,Horse-Radish Family Tree
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Brassicales
Genus: Moringa

Synonyms:Moringa aptera Geartn

Common Names:Ben Tree,Wispy-needled tree yasar, wild drum-stick tree.

Habitat:Grows in Mediterranean Woodlands and Shrublands, Semi-steppe shrublands, Deserts and extreme deserts

Description:
Moringa peregrine is a midium size  tree having alternate, compound,pinnate,bipnnate smooth leaves. Flowers are cream,pink and white.Fruit pods are elomgated capsule 32-39 cm x 5-1.7 cm.

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This native of the Red Sea region is mayb ethe strangest member of a strange group. When Moringa peregrina seedlings start out, they have broad leaflets and a large tuber. Through many dry seasons, the shoot dies back below ground to the tuber. As the plant gets older, the leaves get longer and longer, but the leaflets get smaller and smaller and more widely spaced. Adult trees produce leaves with a full complement of tiny leaflets, only to drop them as the leaf matures. However, the naked leaf axis remains, giving the tree a wispy look similar to Tamarix or Cercidium microphyllum. The pink zygomorphic flowers are sweetly scented and contrast with the blue leaves.

A lot of ads from purveyors of Moringa products will try to tell you that the ancient Romans and Egyptians used Moringa oleifera. Not true- in fact, M. peregrina oil was one of the important oils of ancient times. A least in the southern Arabian Peninsula, the tubers of saplings are roasted and eaten.

Medicinal Uses:
The seeds of the common small tree Moringa peregrina are turned into a yellowish oil that cures abdominal pains, infantile convulsion and for childbirth. The testa is removed, powdered and then has salt and water added.

Disclaimer : The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider

Resources:
http://www.herbnet.com/Herb%20Uses_DE.htm
http://www.explorelifeonearth.org/peregrina.html
http://www.flowersinisrael.com/Moringaperegrina_page.htm

http://www.explorelifeonearth.org/peregrina.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moringa

http://www.explorelifeonearth.org/peregrina.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moringa

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Loropetalum chinense

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Botanical Name :Loropetalum chinense
Family: Hamamelidaceae
Genus: Loropetalum
Species: L. chinense
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Saxifragales

Synonyms  :  L. indicum. Hamamelis chinensis.

Common Name:Lacquer Tree, Fringe Flower, Chinese fringe flower.

Habitat :Loropetalum chinense is native to Japan and southeastern Asia including southern China. It grows on the rocky hills and dry open woods, often on limestone.  Stream banks, hilly slopes and roadsides.

Description:
Loropetalum is a finely textured evergreen shrub. It has a loose open form and will grow as high as 12 ft (3.7 m) and 6-8 ft (1.8-2.4 m) wide. Loropetalum has a spreading habit with branches arranged in horizontal layers. Young shrubs have greater spread than height and are densely branched. When vertical stems are periodically removed loropetalum makes an effective large scale groundcover with some newer varieties selected especially for that purpose. The flowers are arranged in small clusters with each having 4 narrow straplike petals that droop downward. Flowers resemble those of its close relative the witchhazel (Hamamelis virginiana). There are white and red flowered forms of loropetalum and both bloom prolifically beginning in late winter into spring and then continue sporadically throughout the summer. The green-leafed varieties have fragrant flowers that are white or yellowish. ‘Rubra’ and ‘Razzleberri’ are among several named red flowered forms and tend to bloom earlier than the white form. The red forms are much showier in bloom than the white whose flowers tend to get lost with the effect that the shrub just looks like it has lighter foliage color when in bloom….

Click to see the pictures>…...(01).…..(1)…….(2).……...(3)..….
The leaves of loropetalum are oval, 1-2 in (2.5-5 cm) long and about 1 in (2.5 cm) wide and are held alternately on the stem. Foliage of the white form is light green to yellowish-green and lighter on the underside. Red forms typically have leaves that are darker green and have burgundy, red or copper tints depending on the selection.

Cultivation:
Landscape Uses:Border, Screen, Standard, Superior hedge, Specimen. Requires a rich well-drained neutral to acid soil in full sun or light shade. Requires a lime-free humus-rich soil. One report says that it succeeds on a sheltered north wall whilst another says that it needs a sunny position and another says it needs warm summers. Prefers a cool root run. This species is not very cold-hardy in Britain, it is also slow growing. It succeeds outdoors in the mildest areas of the country, tolerating temperatures down to about -5°c. Plants do not flower well if the temperature drops below 5°c. The Japanese form of this species might be hardier. Plants grow taller in their native habitat, reaching a height of 3 metres. The flowers emit a delicate sweet perfume. Some named forms have been developed in Japan for their ornamental value. Special Features: Attractive foliage, Not North American native, Fragrant flowers, Attractive flowers or blooms.

Propagation:
Seed – sow in a warm greenhouse in late winter or early spring. When they are large enough to handle, prick the seedlings out into individual pots and grow them on in the greenhouse for at least their first winter. Plant them out into their permanent positions in late spring or early summer, after the last expected frosts. Give the plants some protection from the cold for at least their first winter outdoors. Cuttings of half-ripe wood, 5 – 8cm with a heel, July/August in a frame. Fair to good percentage. Layering in the spring .

Uses:
In the past few years loropetalum has become increasingly popular and is now seen everywhere from commercial properties to streetside plantings to residential. Everyone seems to be discovering the charms of this beautiful and robust shrub. Its graceful, horizontally layered shape makes it a perfect foundation plant and with periodic pruning can be used in hedges. The red flowered forms add beautiful contrasting color and texture in shrub borders and look great massed together. Lower growing varieties are now available for use as large scale ground cover.

Features
Attractive evergreen foliage, fragrant flowers and low maintenance requirements are just a few of loropetalum’s talents. Due to its vigor and adaptability, many new selections have become available in the past several years. This is the only member of the genus Loropetalum which is in the witchhazel family Hamamelidaceae. Other well known members of this large family are witch-alder (Fothergilla major), sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) and parrotia (Parrotia persica).

Medicinal Uses:
A decoction of the whole plant is used in the treatment of coughing in tuberculosis, dysentery, enteritis etc. The leaves can be crushed and pulverized for external application on wounds.

Disclaimer:
The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider.

Resources:
http://www.floridata.com/ref/l/loro_chi.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loropetalum_chinense

http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Loropetalum+chinense

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Cecropia peltata

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Botanical Name : Cecropia peltata
Family: Urticaceae
Genus: Cecropia
Species: C. peltata
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Rosales

Common Name :Pumpwood and Trumpet tree.,Embauba

Habitat : Cecropia peltata is native to Central America, northern South America, and the Caribbean, and it has naturalized in parts of Africa. This is an early-succession species adapted to grow rapidly in disturbed areas. It is therefore most common in secondary woods and along forest edges.

Description
Trumpet tree is an awkwardly branched, open-crowned tree with alternate leaves about a foot (30 cm) wide clustered at tips of inwardly curving stems. It can grow to 70 ft (21 m) tall, but most trees are much smaller. The leaves have 7-11 palmate lobes and are borne on long petioles which attach near the center of the leaf. Leaves are rough-textured and dark green above and felty white underneath. The smooth gray bark on young trees is ringed with leaf scars. The flowers are small inconspicuous yellow catkins. They are followed by numerous small seeds embedded in 3 in (7.5 cm) long soft-fleshed fruiting stems. Prop roots sometimes develop at the base of the tree. Cecropia peltata is often confused with C. palmata, which has leaves divided almost to the base (as opposed to a third of the way in) and longer fruits. C. peltata may also be mistaken for Didymopanax morototoni, an unrelated lookalike tree.

click to see the pictures…>….…(01).…..(1).…….(2)..……(3)..……...(4)……
Hardiness: USDA Zones 10 – 11. This is a very frost sensitive tree that throws a dramatic tantrum and flings big brown leaves all around when it gets chilled.

Cultivation;
These are fast growing, short-lived trees. Young specimens can put on 2-3 in (5-8 cm) diameter per year. They need fertile soil to grow well and dislike competition from lawn grasses.
Light: Trumpet tree does best in full sun.
Moisture: These trees grow best on well drained soils with ample moisture.

Propagation: Trumpet tree can be propagated from seed, but the seeds germinate slowly. In the wild, the seeds are dispersed by bats and birds.

Edible Uses:
The young buds may be eaten as a cooked vegetable.

Medicinal Uses:
The corrosive and astringent latex is used against warts, calluses, herpes, ulcers, dysentery, and venereal diseases. A tea made from the leaves is widely employed as a cure for asthma and thought to be useful in treating a wide variety of other ailments including liver disease, cardiovascular problems, Parkinson’s disease, and snakebite. It also is used to ease childbirth and menstrual complaints.  Various substances have been extracted from yagrumo hembra for medicinal use, including one that increases cardiac muscular contraction and acts upon the kidneys as a diuretic. A substance extracted from the roots is said to heal wounds, and the leaves are often used as a poultice to reduce swelling and as an abrasive

The leaves of both Cecropia peltata and C. palmata are used in herbal medicine under the name “embauba leaf.” A tea made from the leaves is widely employed as a cure for asthma and thought to be useful in treating a wide variety of other ailments including liver disease, cardiovascular problems, Parkinson’s disease, and snakebite.

It also is used to ease childbirth and menstrual complaints.

Other Uses;
Cecropias are widely planted for tropical landscape effects.

The trumpet tree’s main trunk is solid and composed of a soft, weak, brittle, lightweight wood. It is combined with cement to make insulation board and made into excelsior, matchsticks, crates, toys, partitions, and paper pulp. The wood ignites readily from friction and makes good tinder. A latex rubber is made from the milky sap and the inner bark yields a coarse fiber. The leaves are sometimes used as sandpaper. The hollow stems have been fashioned into musical instruments, fishing floats, life preservers, water troughs, gutters, and bottle “corks.” The dead leaves dry dark mahogany brown above and white beneath, and curl into interesting sculptural forms which can be used in dried arrangements.

In addition to providing quick (though patchy) shade and tropical atmosphere, the trumpet tree makes a fine ecological conversation piece. In the tree’s native habitat biting ants live in the hollow stems. In a mutually beneficial relationship, the small but fierce ants clean the tree of debris and protect it from leaf-cutter ants and other herbivores, while the tree provides the ants with shelter and food in the form of special food-bodies produced along the undersides of the leaf stems

WARNING
Many regions lack the ants that live in wild Latin American trumpet trees, but it is wise to be cautious around these trees until you are certain that the ones you are dealing with are ant-free.

Disclaimer:
The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider.

Resources:
http://www.herbnet.com/Herb%20Uses_DE.htm
http://www.floridata.com/ref/c/cecr_pel.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecropia_peltata

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American Chestnut

Botanical Name :Castanea dentata
Family: Fagaceae
Genus: Castanea
Species: C. dentata
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Fagales

Common Name :American Chestnut

Habitat : Castanea dentata is native to eastern North America. Before the species was devastated by the chestnut blight, a fungal disease, it was one of the most important forest trees throughout its range.

Description:
A rapidly growing deciduous hardwood tree, it reached up to 30–45 meters (100–150 ft) tall and 3 meters (10 ft) in diameter, and ranged from Maine and southern Ontario to Mississippi, and from the Atlantic coast to the Appalachian Mountains and the Ohio Valley. There are several related chestnut species, such as the European Sweet Chestnut, Chinese Chestnut, and Japanese Chestnut, which are distinguishable only with difficulty from the American species. C. dentata can be best identified by the larger and more widely spaced saw-teeth on the edges of its leaves, as indicated by the scientific name dentata, Latin for “toothed”. The leaves, which are 14–20 centimeters (5–8 in) long and 7–10 centimeters (3–4 in) broad, also tend to average slightly shorter and broader than those of the Sweet Chestnut. The blight-resistant Chinese Chestnut is now the most commonly planted chestnut species in the U.S. It can be distinguished from the American Chestnut by its hairy twig tips which are in contrast to the hairless twigs of the American Chestnut. The chestnuts are in the beech family along with beech and oak, and are not closely related to the horse-chestnut, which is in the family Sapindaceae.
CLICK & SEE THE PICTURES
The American Chestnut is a prolific bearer of nuts, usually with three nuts enclosed in each spiny green burr, and lined in tan velvet. The nuts develop through late summer, the burrs opening and falling to the ground near the first fall frost.

The American Chestnut was a very important tree for wildlife, providing much of the fall mast for species such as White-tailed Deer and Wild Turkey and, formerly, the Passenger Pigeon. Black Bears were also known to eat the nuts to fatten up for the winter.

Medicinal Uses:
The Indians made a tea from the leaves to treat whooping cough and the same tea has been used as a sedative and tonic.  The bark was used to treat worms and dysentery.

Other Uses:
The nuts were once an important economic resource in the U.S., being sold on the streets of towns and cities, as they sometimes still are during the Christmas season (usually “roasting on an open fire” so their smell is readily identifiable many blocks away). Chestnuts are edible raw or roasted, though typically preferably roasted. Nuts of the European Sweet Chestnut are now sold instead in many stores. One must peel the brown skin to access the yellowish-white edible portion. The unrelated horse-chestnut’s “conkers” are poisonous without extensive preparation.

The wood is straight-grained, strong, and easy to saw and split, and it lacks the radial end grain found on most other hardwoods. The tree was particularly valuable commercially since it grew at a faster rate than oaks. Being rich in tannins, the wood was highly resistant to decay and therefore used for a variety of purposes, including furniture, split-rail fences, shingles, home construction, flooring, piers, plywood, paper pulp, and telephone poles. Tannins were also extracted from the bark for tanning leather. Although larger trees are no longer available for milling, much chestnut wood has been reclaimed from historic barns to be refashioned into furniture and other items. “Wormy” chestnut refers to a defective grade of wood that has insect damage, having been sawn from long-dead blight-killed trees. This “wormy” wood has since become fashionable for its rustic character.

This tree is not considered a particularly good patio shade tree because its droppings are prolific and a considerable nuisance. Catkins in the spring, spiny nut pods in the fall, and leaves in the early winter can all be a problem. These characteristics are more or less common to all shade trees, but perhaps not to the same degree as with the chestnut. The spiny seed pods are a particular nuisance when scattered over an area frequented by people.

Montreal, Quebec, is famous for its abundance of chestnuts in the downtown core during the autumn months. One may find a festival of ripened harvested chestnuts along rue Sherbrooke. Native Montréalers dub it the Le Festival De La Châtaigne, which generally occurs during the last week of September.

Disclaimer:
The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider.

Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Chestnut
http://www.herbnet.com/Herb%20Uses_C.htm

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Florida Fishpoison Tree(Piscidia piscipula)

Botanical Name :Piscidia piscipula
Family: Fabaceae
Genus: Piscidia
Species: P. piscipula
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Fabales

Common Names:Florida fishpoison tree, Jamaican dogwood or Fishfuddle

Habitat : The Florida fishpoison tree grows in coastal zones. It prefers well-drained sandy soils, with a top layer of humus. The tree has some tolerance to short-term storm surges of brackish water or seawater. Although it grows in coastal conditions, the tree is usually protected from direct salt spray by adjoining vegetation. Established trees are highly tolerant of drought. Its sensitivity to the cold limits Florida fishpoison tree to areas no colder than plant hardiness zone11.

Description:
Florida fishpoison tree,  is a medium-sized, deciduous, tropical tree endemic to southern Florida, the Florida Keys, Texas, Caribbean, and Latin America.Native Americans of the West Indies discovered extracts from the tree could sedate fish, allowing them to be caught by hand. This practice led to the tree’s common names—fishpoison and fishfuddle. The tree has medicinal value as an analgesic and sedative.

The generic name is Latin for “fish killer”, and the specific name is Latin for “little fish,

 

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Size: The Florida fishpoison tree attains medium size with heights of 12 to 15 m and bole diameters of 46 to 118 cm. An irregular, open crown develops with stout, erect branches.

Foliage: Its deciduous leaves (9 to 23 cm long) are alternate and pinnately compound. Five to 11 leaflets (each 4 to 8 cm long) are present in an opposite arrangement. Leaflets are dark green above and distinctly paler grayish-green below with pubescence.

Flowers/Fruit: The white flowers are tinged with red or pink. They appear in pea-like clusters in May and are attractive to bees. Trees will potentially bloom when about 4 m tall and 4 years old. Flowers develop into a light brown, bean-like pod (8 to 10 cm long) with four papery wings. Ripening in July and August, the pods contain red-brown seeds with oval shapes.

Bark: Stem bark is thin and olive gray in color with irregular dark patches and many smaller scales. The bark has an unpleasant odor and a distinctly acrid and bitter taste, causing a burning sensation in the mouth.

Propagation: After removal from the ripe pod, seeds will germinate in 8 to 10 days when sown about 6 mm deep in moist soil. Until seedlings become well established, they should be fertilized and watered. Cuttings placed in moist soil quickly sprout roots. In fact, rooting has been observed to occur so readily that posts made from fresh timber occasionally take root unintentionally.

Medicinal Uses:
Florida fishpoison tree has long been used in traditional medicine for treating nervous conditions and pain. Recent scientific studies in animals suggest that bark extracts have potential for their anti-inflammatory, sedative, and anti-spasmodic effects.

Other Uses:e
Ornamental: In areas with a suitable climate and soils, Florida fishpoison tre makes a hardy, medium-sized shade tree with attractive seasonal flowers. It is ideal for yards and along fence rows. The species is shade intolerant, requiring full sunlight for maximum development.

Wood: The yellow-brown wood of fishpoison tree is resistant to decay, making its timber suitable for outdoor usage, such as boat building, fence posts, and poles. The dense, tight-grained wood is also used as a fuel, to make charcoal, and as a good carving material.

Fish poison: 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 are present in the tree’s tissues that are toxic to fish, the principal one being the well-known Rotenone.

Disclaimer:The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is  always advisable to consult with your own health care provider.

Resources

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

Piscidia piscipula

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