''Vernonia amygdalina'', a member of the
daisy family
The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...
, is a small shrub that grows in tropical
Africa. ''V. amygdalina'' typically grows to a height of . The leaves are elliptical and up to long. Its bark is rough.
''V. amygdalina'' is commonly called bitter leaf in English because of its bitter taste. Other African common names include Congo Bololo (D. R. Congo), grawa (Amharic), ewuro (Yoruba), etidot (Efik), onugbu (Igbo), ityuna (Tiv), oriwo (Edo), Awɔnwono (Akan), chusar-doki or shuwaka (Hausa), mululuza (Luganda), labwori (Acholi), olusia (Luo), ndoleh (Cameroon) and olubirizi (Lusoga).
Uses
Food
The leaves are a staple vegetable in soups and stews of various cultures throughout equatorial Africa. They are washed to reduce their bitterness, after which they are dried and used to prepare meat dishes. In
Nigeria, leaves are also used in place of
hops
Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant ''Humulus lupulus'', a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to whi ...
to brew beer.
Other
In Nigeria, twigs and sticks from this plant are used as a chewing stick for dental hygiene and the stems are used for soap in Uganda. In Ghana, the young leaves rather than the old, has gained credence for its potent anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory activity; and have been proven using animal models.
Zoopharmacognosy
In the wild,
chimpanzee
The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative th ...
s have been observed to ingest the leaves when suffering from parasitic infections.
References
External links
{{Taxonbar, from=Q3744526
amygdalina
Leaf vegetables
Plants used in traditional African medicine
Flora of West Tropical Africa