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The Tree

Taheebo
		Image Is NOT Representative Of The Taheebo Tree

This is a footnote to an article about the South American herb, called "Taheebo."  In this footnote, and nowhere else on the web, you can learn the technical names, in several languages, and the historical background of this herb.

The reference in the article was:

How does a researcher from the Harvard Medical School do his research? How would this medical researcher regard a research project for a natural herb, such as the bark from the Taheebo Tree?

In all my searches of the Internet for information about "Taheebo," I could never have found much unless I knew what words to search for. Here, in this brief footnote you'll find information that many people who are not on the web know as well as the back of their hands, but many others who are active on the web have never heard of, and couldn't get no matter how hard they looked. Knowing the nomenclature is the first step to understanding the subject.

Here are the key words and phrases described in this footnote:

Taheebo

ipes roxo
ipe roxo
Pau d'Arco
pau-d‘arco
lapachal
Lapacho
tabeuia
tabeuia Serratifolia
tajibo
quinones
tabeuia Impetiginosa

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The word "Taheebo" is just one of the names by which the tree goes. The tree grows in several different countries of South America and therefore the tree has a differently spelled name depending on which language is being used.

In Brazil, the Portuguese names used are ipes, pau-d‘arco or ipe roxo (roxo relates to the color purple – the color of the flowers on many of these trees, but Brazilians use this word casually for pink, red, magenta and violet also). The wood of this tree is exceptionally strong and, among many other uses, archery bows are often made from it – thus giving it also the Portuguese name pau-d’arco, or bow stick.

Other names include Poui and Bow Tree.

They shed their leaves during the dry season,and bloom with flowers of pastel pink and violet when the rains start.

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The Latin name given this tree starts with the family, tabeuia, and then adds any one of several names for the genus. For instance tabeuia Serratifolia, with yellow (serra) flowers (folia), is the national symbol of Brazil.

 

Probably the most commonly used Latin name is tabeuia Impetiginosa. Interestingly, the genus name, Impetiginosa, is a word indicating a medicine against impetigo, an infection of the skin.

 

From the earliest of days the bark from this tree has been recognized by many unrelated people as having remarkable medicinal powers.

 

The family name, tabeuia, comes from an Indian language in Brazil. There, the Indians knew this tree as one in which ants lived in hollowed out twigs – thus the Indian word for "ant wood" was taken, and spelled tabeuia. Even though ants may have lived in these twigs (probably dead twigs), the tree itself is well known to withstand termites and disease.

 

The tree grows in almost every South American country, but also in Mexico and many of the Caribbean Islands. There are those companies who lie about some of these basically simple data – saying, for instance, that the tree ONLY grows in some certain place (where they get THEIR supply), and then claiming that ALL OTHER forms of the bark are frauds. THEY are the frauds!

 

Probably the most common name for this tree in the United States is Taheebo. That is a word which comes from a group of Bolivian healers, living in the Andes Mountains. They called this tree the tajibo, pronounced Taheebo. Because these Bolivian healers traveled outside South America to demonstrate the power of the herb in Europe and elsewhere, their name for this tree has gained great prominence.

 

There is a substance inside the seed pods of these trees which has been given the name lapachol, or coming-from-lapacho. Lapacho, itself, is simply yet another word used to describe the tree. The word, Lapachal, later came to be used as the specific name of one type of a whole class of substances called quinones found in many plants. Thus, lapachol IS a quinone. These quinones are well researched, and many of them show anti-cancer characteristics. As much as 3% to 4% of the bark of the Taheebo Tree consists of the organic substance called Lapachal. These substances are found in the pigment part of the bark and wood and leaves.

Other names of active botanical substances include naphohoquinones and anthraquinones.

The information in this footnote is largely taken from an excellent book, Pau d’Arco, by Kenneth Jones. I highly recommend that book for many more details than I am presenting in this Article. The book can be obtained from Liberty Library, 300 Independence Ave., S. E., Washington, DC 20003, at $10.95, postpaid.

 

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