I was sitting with Shamim when he took out his camera, and that reminded me: the udal tree (Sterculia villosa) was in flower. Last year’s little embarrassment came back to me too. Seeing those clusters of yellow flowers, I had been fairly sure it was an amra, a hog plum tree. It was the structure of the flowers that showed me how wrong I was.
Udal is a tree of the Indian subcontinent, found from Bangladesh across to several countries of Southeast Asia. I think it deserves far more research than it gets. The studies done so far have reported antimicrobial and antifungal activity in its extracts, along with membrane-stabilising and anti-clotting effects in the laboratory. Chemical analysis has turned up flavonoids, tannins and alkaloids. In villages the sap is traditionally applied to burns.
Camera in hand, off to the udal
I had missed my chance last time, so this year the udal had to be photographed. I asked Shamim to come along and take a few pictures for me. He tried from outside the fence first, but the photos were not much good, so I said we should go in.
For a long while now the greenhouse project has been under way in the Dhaka University botanical garden, and I rarely go inside the way I used to. These days the place feels oddly cluttered. I used to feel a kind of peace the moment I stepped into the garden, and that feeling is gone. Anyway, we went up to the udal. I took some photos and then just stood under the tree for a while. It felt good. But it was nearly time for the bus, so we had to leave.
Looking for shells, finding a pearl
We were on our way out of the greenhouse project area, the part fenced off with blue tin sheets, when my eye fell on a plant. I was beside myself. I called out to Shamim to come over, pulled out my phone and took a few pictures. It was a patharkuchi (Bryophyllum pinnatum), the life plant, and it was in flower. I had seen its flowers before only at my nani’s house, my maternal grandmother’s. A few patharkuchi plants used to sit on the kitchen roof, and whenever I climbed the ladder up to the rooftop I would meet them there. I had never expected to find one flowering here, in this spot. It was like going out to gather shells and coming home with a pearl.
New life along the edge of a leaf
Patharkuchi is one of our most familiar plants. Everyone knows that new plantlets sprout along the edge of its leaves without any help at all. This happens because the outer margin of the leaf, the peripheral region, holds a great deal of meristematic tissue. Normally a given tissue produces only its own kind: root tissue makes root, stem tissue makes stem. Meristematic tissue is a special dividing tissue whose fate is not fixed in advance. Leaf, root, stem or flower, it can become whatever the plant needs.
So if a patharkuchi leaf gets enough water for a few days, countless little plantlets can appear along its edge. That is why it is called the life plant. The name has stuck not only because new plants grow from its leaves but also because of its reputation as a medicinal herb.
The herb beside every village house
Its traditional uses are wide. In villages the leaves, roots and stems have long been used on wounds and burns, the leaves on fungal and bacterial skin problems, and the juice of the fleshy leaves for coughs. It is also commonly used in the countryside for kidney stones, and people speak of it as soothing for the liver and for high blood pressure.
The leaves contain a group of steroid compounds called bufadienolides. Studies have reported antibacterial activity from them, but these same compounds act on the heart, which is why the plant is toxic to grazing animals, so it is wise to be careful about eating patharkuchi. The plant is also a source of a few important fatty acids, among them stearic, palmitic and linoleic acid.
We plant patharkuchi around our houses without a second thought, but how many of us know how much it holds.
The traditional uses described here are for information only. Consult a doctor before using any plant to treat an illness.
Leave a Reply