By Honor Blanco Cabie
MANILA, Oct. 19 – Every other morning, Jeanie waters the plants, including a robust guava tree, in the garden of the couple she lives with in a middle income subdivision on the eastern bed of the metropolis.
She has been particularly soft for the nearly 8-meter tall tropical plant guava (Psidium guajava Linn.), called “bayawas” by Ilocanos and “bayabas” by Tagalogs as well as Hiligaynons and Cebuanos, appreciated for its edible fruit that grows, mostly, in some backyard or in open spaces.
Jeanie’s guava tree has started bearing fruits – light green with pink, juicy flesh and a strong, sweet aroma, which has daily excited birds making a stealthy dives in mid mornings before flying back to the taller crowns of rain trees nearby.
Jeanie has begun covering the nearly round-shaped fruits – for members of the household from the oldest, a senior citizen, to the youngest, a three-year-old boy who had started to like the taste of the fruit.
The tropical tree -– variously bearing fruit from about a meter tall to eight meters tall — is popular in many areas because of its many uses as fruit and as a traditional remedy to treat different ailments.
The variety abundant in the woods of Lubang island in Occidental Mindoro, where two Japanese stragglers hid for 32 years after the war, were only about a meter tall but were literally covered by the aromatic fruits.
Research studies have shown that practically all parts of the plant have medicinal qualities and value, earning a notch for itself as among the most popular therapeutic plants in the Philippines.
A hairy tree that reaches 8 meters in full height, its young branches are 4-angled, its dark green leaves are opposite, oblong to elliptic, and 5 to 10 centimeters long, the apex being pointed, and the base usually rounded.
Peduncles are 1- to 3-flowered, with the flowers white, 3 to 3.5 centimeters across, with in-curved petals, coming out solitary or two to three in the leaf axils.
Several stamens form the attractive part of the flower, the inferior ovaries developing into round or obovoid green fruits 4 to 9 centimeters long, turning yellow when ripe and have edible, aromatic, seedy pulp.
Guava is common in all localities of this Southeast Asian archipelago, a sight popular in country backyards and settled areas, in thickets and secondary forests at low altitudes, ascending to at least 1,500 meters.
Among Ilocanos, the guava leaf is also an important remedy for some ailments and, for their young boys passing through the ancient ritual to manhood, the chewed guava leaves can be an effective pain reliever and can accelerate healing of the wound.
Health care experts say the leaf products have isolated more than 20 compounds, including alkaloids, anthocyanins, carotenoids, essential oils, fatty acids, lectins, phenols, saponins, tannins, triterpenes, and vitamin C.
They say the leaves contain a fixed oil (6 percent) and volatile oil (0.365 percent) while the fruit contains "glykosen" 4.14 to 4.3 percent, saccharose 1.62 to 3.4 percent, protein 0.3 percent.
Guava’s bark contains 12 to 30 percent tannin. Roots are also rich in tannin. The tree contains catequinic components and flavonoids.
Major constituents of guava’s leaves are tannins, ß-sitosterol, maslinic acid, essential oils, triterpenoids and flavonoids.
Health care experts say the fruit is high in vitamin C (80 mg in 100 gm of fruit) with large amounts of vitamin A.
Filipino folk traditions suggest the astringent, unripe fruit, the leaves, bark cortex, and roots — although more often the leaves only — are used in decoction for washing ulcers and wounds, with the fresh leaves used for wounds and toothache.
According to them, decoction or infusion of fresh leaves is used for wound cleaning to prevent infection and to facilitate healing while warm decoction of leaves is for aromatic baths.
Decoction of root bark is also used as mouthwash for swollen gums while the root bark has been recommended for chronic diarrhea.
They say guava has properties that are antidiarrheal, antiseptic, antispasmodic, antioxidant hepatoprotective, anti-allergy, antimicrobial, antigenotoxic, antiplasmodial, cardioactive, anticough, antidiabetic, antiinflammatory, antinociceptive.
Jeanie has good reasons to be protective of the guava in the home she lives in. (PNA)Data: 19.10.2012
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