KASOY (Anacardium Occidentale L.) 
What do I know about kasoy? Aside from it having a kidney-shaped seed, I know no more. Because I am one of a kind who didn’t bother to know anything about something I’m not interested with unless, I am required to search and discuss about it. Just like what I am doing right now…searching and tackling fruits I don’t even prefer to eat. Just for the sake of knowing their medical usage.

However, kasoy or cashew is a small tree with gloomy trunk; simple, alternate, ovate leaves of 10-20cm long and 7-12 cm wide and has a fruit of a nut, ash colored.  

The decoction of the bark is used for diarrhea, diabetes, syphilitic swellings and ulcerations in the mouth.* The infusion of the leaves and bark is used as astringent to relief toothache, sore gums and dysentery. The juice from the pericarp is diuretic and sudorific. The oil from the nut is used for wart, blisters, corns and ulcers. The tincture of the pericarp is vermifuge.

GUYABANO (Annona muricata L.) 
Guyabano or sour sop is a small tree of 5-7 m in height. Its leaves are oblong having 2-15 cm long, pointed at both ends, smooth and shiny. The pulp is soft, white, fibrous, fleshy, and has a sour taste. But as I have tasted it before, it tastes good. 

Its leaf infusion is used as sudorific, antispasmodic, emetic. The flowers are used as anti-spasmodic; ripe fruit as antiscorbutic; unipe fruit for dysentery. Its seed and green fruit are used as astringent.

CAIMITO (Chrysophyllum cainito L.) 
From cashew, sour sop, sweet sop and now to star apple or caimito. Basically, it is 15 m high with infinite slender branches; leathery, ovate to oblong leaves of 7-13 cm long; purplish-white, small flowers and a rounded, smooth, shiny, purple or light-green skin of fruit in 6-16 cm in diameter.  

Aside from its fibrous and pleasant taste, its bark decoction is good for dysentery; infusion for tonic and refreshing; latex for abscesses;dried latex for drastic anthelmintic; fruit for diabetes and its seed for antidiarrheic.

PANDAN (Pandanus amaryllifolius Roxb.) 
Pandan is an ornamental plant of sword-like leaves of 2m and 20 inches long. It doesn’t have flower or even fruit and pure leaves instead. 

The roots in decoction are diuretic and cardiotonic which are used in cases of threatened abortion, aphrodisiac.* Its oil is stimulant, antispasmodic and antiseptic which is used for headache, earache and rheumatism.

“The more you know, the more you realize how little you really know. Every new discoveries, raises more questions than it answer.”—Anonymous

TERMS:

• Aphrodisiac – an  agent that excites sexual desire 

• Cataplasms or poultices – soft, semi-liquid, external applications which either alleviate an inflamed area or stimulate a part of the body by supplying healing or medicating substances, usually in the presence of warm moisture.

• Decoctions – preparations made by boiling herbal materials in water for a period of time. Hard materials such as seeds, roots and bark are usually boiled for 30 minutes at about five percent strength, then the solution strained and cooled prior to administration.

• Diuretic – tending  to increase urine flow

• Drastic – harsh or severe

• Gnarled – knotty

• Infusions – liquid preparations made by steeping the medicinal herb or part of the plant in boiling water for at least 15 minutes; also known as teas softer materials such as leaves and blossoms are prepared as infusions. Boiling water is poured over the drug in a container covered and left for 15 minutes then strained, flavored with sugar or honey and used immediately.

• Insecticidal – a preparation for destroying insects

• Latex – a milky juice produced by various plant cells

• Pharmaceutical – related in pharmacy

• Tincture – alcoholic or hydroalcoholic preparations, 100 ml of which contains the activity of 10-20g of the drug.

• Whorled – having or arranged in coil or spiral

REFERENCES

      Handbook of Philippine Medicinal Plants Volume 1

     by Ludivina S. de Padua, Gregorio C. Lugod and Juan V. Pancho

      Webster Dictionaries