详情
COMMON NAME:
Standardized: Damiana.
Other: Mexican-holly, damiana de Guerrero, yerba de la Pastora,
Mexican Damiana.
BOTANICAL NAME: Turnera diffusa Willd.
PARTS USED: Dried leaf.
OVERVIEW: Damiana has been used in Mexico and southward to Central
and South America since the times of the ancient Aztec, and is
still quite popular today. Although its effect on sexual
desire was its primary use across cultures, it was also valued as a
nerve relaxant, digestive stimulant, mood enhancer, and simply
an enjoyable beverage that was given to children. In more
recent times it has been used as an herbal smoke,
often combined with other herbs, and a liqueur.
FLAVOR NOTES AND ENERGETICS: Pungent herb with a fig-like
flavor.
HERBAL ACTIONS: Bitter digestive stimulant, mild purgative,
diuretic, tonic (for the nervous and reproductive system),
hypochondriastic (quelling hypochondria), laxative, stimulant,
nervine, emmenagogue, astringent, expectorant, urinary
antiseptic.
USES AND PREPARATIONS: Commonly the dried leaf and stem is used as
a tea, tincture, in herbal smoking blends, or powdered and
encapsulated, and is also infused in alcohol to make liqueurs
or cordials.
CONSTITUENTS: Damianin, resins, tannins, a variety of minerals,
alkaloids, cyanogenic glycosides, green essential oil, thought
to smell like chamomile, perhaps due to the apigenin content.
The essential oil contains pinene, cineaol, cymol, arbutin,
cymene, cadinene, copaenen.
PRECAUTIONS: None known.
