Terminalia catappa L.

DeFilipps, Robert A. & Krupnick, Gary A., 2018, The medicinal plants of Myanmar, PhytoKeys 102, pp. 1-341 : 49-50

Terminalia catappa L.

Names.

Myanmar: badan, banda. English: Indian almond, Malabar almond, tropical almond, West Indian almond.

Range.

Tropical Asia to Northern Australia and Polynesia, and cultivated in many places. Cultivated in Myanmar.

Uses.

Whole plant: Astringent, also used in treating dysentery. Nordal lists this plant as having medicinal value, but does not give use(s).

Notes.

Medicinal uses of this species in India are discussed in Jain and DeFilipps (1991). Indigenous medicinal uses of this species in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (India) are described by Dagar and Singh (1999). Medicinal uses of the species in East and Southeast Asia are discussed in Perry (1980). Some of these uses follow: In Indonesia the leaves are used as a dressing for swollen rheumatic joints; in the Philippines, the red leaves are used as a vermifuge, sap of the young leaves is cooked with oil from the kernel to treat leprosy, leaves mixed with oil is rubbed on the breast to relieve pain, or heated and applied to rheumatic an numb parts of the body; in the Solomon Islands leaves are used to treat yaws, bark and root bark are used for bilious fevers, diarrhea, dysentery, and as remedy for sores and abscesses; in Indonesia, the plant it is used as a mild laxative and a galactagogue for women.

Unripe fruits of T. catappa contain tannin and terminalin, which are toxic to cattle and sheep when eaten, causing kidney necrosis ( Lan et al. 1998). The bark is rich in tannin; oil from the kernel contains olein, palmitin, and stearin; from fruit grown in Puerto Rico, myristic and linoleic acids were extrated; also, the leaves show some antibiotic activity against Staphylococcus ( Perry 1980).

References.

Nordal (1963), Perry (1980).