Tronadora, Tecoma stans

Tronadora, Tecoma stans var. angustata, also called Esperanza, yellow elder, trumpet bush.

Tronadora, wild variety

Family: Bignoniaceae. Tronadora presents where I have found and worked with it, in the wild, in far southern Arizona, as a knee to thigh high, about 1 1/2 to 3 feet tall perennial deciduous shrubby wild flower. The wild variety found here on rocky bajadas is usually called Tecoma stans variety angustata, to distinguish it from the landscape varieties sold in nurseries in Arizona and the southwest. The cultivated drought tolerant, xeriscape variety, sometimes found in urban southwest landscaping, along highways, and in parks and so on, is a much taller shruby small tree, 6-10 feet tall, the leaves being twice as large.  Both have visually striking glossy, shiny pinnately compound, lanceolate leaves with serrated margins. The large pinnate leaflet complex appears as opposite leaves along a central leaf stem. The flowers are multiple brilliant yellow to orange. Flowers, in terminal racemes up to 10-15 bright yellow flowers (landscape variety), 3-4 flowers in the wild native variety, both varieties are 5 lobed trumpet shaped flowers. Grows in Mexico, Arizona, NM, Texas, Florida where it is temperature determinant, naturalized world wide. Growing here 4500ft, full afternoon sun, with ocotillo and acacia. Tecoma is abbreviated from the Aztecan, mesoAmerican name,"Tecomaxochitl", while stans means upright or erect.  Often used as a landscape plant known for its trumpet shaped yellow flowers, presenting as a 8-10 foot tree vs the wild variety, more likely less than 3 feet tall.

Tronadora leaf T. var angustata

     An important medicinal plant unique in that it is used in several well separated cultural lineages including Mexican folk, Aryuvedic medicine from the sub-continent of India, and Iran. Both Iran and Indian Aryuvedic herbal medicine are unique strands in that they both have schools of medicine that have strongly religious, Hindu and Islam, strong nationalistic focus India and Iran and racial ethnic focus while at the same time including scientific, chemical, medical and pharmaceutical research to back up historical folk usage. In both Iran and India there are medical herbal traditions that have the distinction of strong academic, medical research, on a university peer reviewed level. 

    Some key plant use of tronadora: Leaves contains several monoterpene alkaloids  including, "tecomine" and "tecostamine" which have been found to lower glucose levels. Anthranilic acid is found in the leaves which also lowers blood sugar levels.

1)ability to lower blood glucose. 

2) anti-inflammatory 

3) anti-oxidant 

4) anti-microbial 

5) anti-spasmodic 

6) wound healing

In addition the whole plant extract has a hepato protective effect similar to hepato protective plants like milk thistle, and others in the herbal repertoire, in addition to renal protective factors. Tronadora is related to desert willow, the flower looks similar, both plants frequently share the same eco-tone. It shares some of the anti-fungal usage with it's related Bignoniaceae tribe desert willow, and the flowers appear related, comparing the two shows a strong resemblance. The flowers themselves, are used as a tea for menstrual cramps, an and emmenaogue to promote menstruation. Tronadora as a poultice on skin interruptions is unique as having success topical and lends itself to ointments and salves. 

      

Tronadora flowers

     Tronadora should be looked at as a plant that purifies the blood and calms the nerves. The leaves and flowers are mainly used, but it is also possible to make a tea from the bark and root of this tree. All portions of the plant have been used in the folk tradition. Tronadora has a complex chemistry while at the same time is understood as mild. The taste of the fresh leaves and flowers is slightly sweet, loosely floral, with distinct yet mild bitter after tones,While having hepato protectant properties it also has renal protective factors, for improved function of the kidney. Taken as a tea infusion, the taste is pleasantwith diuretic effects. 

      Let's talk briefly about adult onset blood sugar de-regulation issues. I hesitate to use the 'D' word because it's a complex issue. Rethinking the 'D' narrative is essential. Glucose or sugar enters the body system in multiple ways. In other words, even if you don't eat anything, you still have sugar flowing throughout the body system, because sugar is essential to life. If you don't take in a single calorie, your body makes sure you have ample sugar to run what's between your ears. Your brain runs on glucose. (This is similar to the cholesterol issue. The body makes its own cholesterol. So controlling diet to eliminate fat intake is futile. Especially when hydrogenated vegetable seed oils are substituted.) No sugar equals non-functioning brain, equals death. Ironic that what your body needs to live, sugar, will slowly poison your body. If your blood glucose sugar level goes to around 30, you pass out, collapse on the ground, go into a coma and die. No sugar, equals no life. If a relatively healthy person fasts on only water for multiple days, their blood sugar level remains constant because the healthy body system has everything in place to fuel the system with sugar, without eating a single thing. If a person with a severely de-regulated body system decides to fast on only water, there is a strong possibility that at least initially, the body system is so out of whack that it will not be able to adapt to a fast, and will go into a hypoglycemic crisis, no sugar no life.Yet fasting is a legitimate tool for tis and many other conditions.  Although sugar, glucose is essential to human life, uncontrolled levels of sugar flowing through the blood body system eventually produce a cascade of damaging effects in the body. Beginning at the cell on cell level at the capillary level, the continuous excess sugar damages the tiny capillaries and hence sabotages every body system. Because every body organ requires a complex mix of nutrients and oxygen supplied via the capillaries, with continuous cumulative damage to the capillary system, every body system declines. Blood re-regulation issues related to neuropathy/nerves, macular degeneration/eye, hypertension/elasticity of veins and arteries, heart cardiac issues, cognitive issues, depression and mental illness are all part of metabolic syndrome. 

     Metabolic syndrome rapidly moves a person from independence and sovereignty to dependence. A dependent person is a controlled person. Control, as we saw during the last round of psyop reset protocols is the ultimate goal. The mask mandate is fully visible and exposed as a psyop humilation technique, only viable, within a system of fear based control. Every system in the body is positively codependent. Our social nature as human beings is to be positive co-dependent upon other human beings for input, feed back, information and interaction, As part of erasure of nationhood depersonalized, non-codependent autistic consumers are the goal and ideal. The dependence is shifted from in person, face to face interaction to modified AI protocols. The goal of lock downs during the recent psyop was to mandate AI dependence. The social experiment of masking children, normalizing humiliation and abandonment, closing schools, drugging alpha male children into life long drug addicts through psychiatric pharmakeia, all of the psyop protocols are erasure within an economic agenda. Medi-pharma is the biggest economic engine in the current western economies. So diabetes and metabolic syndrome is a net gain for the regime. Sick people in a systemic scenario of erasure are economic cash cows. Your medical disability is their economic gain. For that reason dissident medical voices are threats to the status quo set up by the elites, for the elites. Alternative voices of alternative people must be silenced within the fabric of pathological altruism.

coyote guarding protecting Tronadora

      The body is well primed for conditions of lack, problem is, the body is not well primed for the extreme abundance of modernism. Sugar is energy, if the electricity goes out, if there is a power failure, the body has multiple generator systems as back up sugar/energy supplies. The problem is the body is way too good at creating sugar from its own tissue body system stores. The body has too many sources of glucose available, too many redundant built in coping systems. You can not drive a car with three wheels. With three tires, you are parking that car. You are going no where. You can drive a body with one healthy kidney. Obviously the body is not an automobile. The body is not a mechanical system. Yet our thinking and narrative is mechanical post modern. Our culture is a mechanical based system, yet we are distinctly living beings. As living beings created, enlivened by God, we are fundamentally foreign cogs in the machine. The point of no return has been reached in many areas of human interaction. So when the resilient luxuriant coping systems of the body meets the continuous supply of modern living, it rapidly devolves into metabolic syndrome and early death. Welcome to the party, party on. The regime has found a way to exploit sickness and crippled life with economic returns, funneled into the elites. It is fundamentally important to understand, death, early death, malignant lingering debilitating illness like heart disease, diabetes and metabolic syndrome are coping mechanisms. Your lingering illness is big business for the elites running the regime at this time. Completely and forever forget voting, democracy, politics and so on. Your vote is your monied purchase. Since health dollars qualitatively have the heaviest dollar weight in the economy, your health illness is your vote.  So when the body, whom is adapted for extreme conditions of lack meets the modern world of continuous supply, the result is lingering illness and early death. With the caveat of reproduce, make a couple babies, and by 35 you are history. Have a baby at age 15, raise it for 15 years, you're done by 35. See you later. Early death and illness is the body's adaptation to modern life. So if you're ok with that, go for it. All pain, all gain. 

      There is exogenous sugar and endogenous sugar. There is native and non-native sugar acting on the body system.  There is sugar you drink, chew and swallow entering by mouth entering the body via the digestive process. There is sugar already stored in the body as multiple substances, in multiple areas of the body that are converted to sugar blood glucose. One method that sugar enters the body system is through the mouth, by eating food. You eat something, then that something is digested, and the something you swallowed, through the digestive process, enters the body system. Eating something means in body system terms, 'Not you becomes you.', 'Other becomes self.'. Then we need to understand types of food and re-define food to actually mean food. Then there is endogenous native sugar or glucose already in the body system acting on the body system.  Then we need to understand body in balance vs body out of balance. 

     Briefly, a lot of what people eat, consume, put in their mouths as food today is total poisonous garbage, and could better be understood within addiction models of behavior. In other words, while it appears visually the person is eating, the person is in reality an addict completing a debilitating drug consumption interaction ritual. It's called eating, but it's much closer to shooting up, lighting up, chasing the dragon, popping a pill. When thinking about heroin, alcohol, marijuana, tobacco, methamphetamine, opioid, pill drug addiction; words like: early death, addict, exploitation, helpless, failed body systems, self defeating behaviour, sabotage, relapse, treatment, treatment center, harm reduction and so on come to mind. Until that style of thinking is understood within the falsefood fakefood sugar fix processed food eating, drinking, slurping paradigm, the only progress possible is within harm reduction. Remember during the last round of psyop reset, convenience stores selling alcohol and tobacco, liquor stores, marijuana dispensaries, and fast food were all essential business. Essential to what? Essential to your exploitation, your continued addiction, your erasure, and essential for the elite's maintenance at the top of the food chain. Whenever the regime says health, think sickness. When the regime outlets say speak up, stay silent. Whenever the regime says, freedom, think slavery. Whenever the regime talks, and they are talking continuously, think erasure. The regime has one goal, wealth redistribution, scarf up and grift out. This is a rich rich land so the possibilities for exploitation are endless. Every 15-20 years a new group matures for new intricate narratives. What once was a mud wrestling match between public and private is still a wrestling match only now the wrestlers wrestle the crowd of spectators. So what you eat has to be addressed with a lot of re-thinking, reowning narrative, unless you're ok with deathstyle erasure. Because right now your role is sick villain within their narrative. By participating within their narrative you are saying, 'I am ok with erasure because I deserve to be erased. I deserve to be sick because I am a bad lazy person. Sell me more meds. Give me more meds.' Guilt is so important to the regime. You deserve to be erased because you or your distant relatives did some bad shit, which makes you a bad person. So the food narrative has to change. 

Tronadora, cultivated variety, note larger leaves

       Next herbal remedies like humula and tronadora and many other plant partners I talk about here, and obviously face to face, person to person, can be helpful for certain people in certain situations. Face to face, IRL interaction is key. However again the narrative is essential. Rethinking your identity is essential in meeting every situation. It's important to address who you are, what you doing and why you are doing it. What is your goal and intention. Tronadora works intensely with the liver and glycogen. The dominant culture narrative is medical diagnosis, then medical treatment. What does a wild plant growing at 4500 feet on a hilly, rocky dry dusty bajada have to do with blood sugar? Again it is identity and narrative. Getting the dis-regulated system back in balance is key. Getting the sugar back into muscle and liver as gylcogen rather than just running around freely within the blood is key. Using and getting these plant medicines is key. Getting the negated person to reown their vital cultural narrative is key. The reality is that labeling, silencing a person's voice, making a person into a non-person for political objectives seems like a do no harm, compassionate choice. The idea is that in changing society for the better, certain ideas are no longer tolerated. Because people advocate ideas, limiting those people's ideas is a 'do no harm' way to lead society to a better future. The reality is personhood exists within a subset of persons. Disavowing a medicinal plant is the same as disavowing a plant person, you diminish the plant and you diminish the person. One of the reasons plants have been placed here by the Creator is to promote hailing within the human body. Eventually within the narrative of selective erasure you are erased. 

     Tronadora as a plant medicine has a role in integration of blood sugar regulation. In addition it also has neuro-protective factors that address the degenerative process of adult onset diabetes at the capillary level within the blood vessels. used internally as a folk remedy for Type 2 Diabetes, although the leaves and flowers are also used to treat colds, fever, jaundice, headache, and kidney problems (Argueta, 2014; Alarcón-Aguilar and Román-Ramos, 2006). The leaves contain the alkaloids known as “tecomine” and “tecostamine”, which have been found to lower blood glucose (sugar) levels when given intravenously to laboratory animals.

Tronadora landscape variety

Another compound present in the leaves, known as anthranilic acid, also lowers blood sugar levels (Kameshwaran et al., 2012). The flowers are used to prepare a tea to relieve menstrual cramps, as well as an emmenaogue to promote menstruation. The decoction made from the roots is taken as a tea to promote urination, as well as an antidote for scorpion and snake venoms, although this has not been proven scientifically (Argueta, 2014). Externally, the leaves and flowers are made into a poultice or wash to treat skin infections (Quattrocchi, 2012).

The plant possesses powerful antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antibacterial activity due to its content of natural chemicals called flavonoids.

With regard to these compounds, Raju et al. (2011) found that an extract made from trumpet flower could be useful in protecting the kidneys from the toxic side effects of an antibiotic known as gentamicin.
Additionally, Jacobo-Salcedo, et al. (2011) found that this plant has important antimicrobial action against certain multi-drug resistant pathogenic (disease-causing) bacteria.

Tronadora found 4500ft bajada zone

References:

https://www.utep.edu/herbal-safety/herbal-facts/herbal%20facts%20sheet/trumpet-flower.html

Dr Armando Gonzalez Stuart Phd, Trumpet Flower

Alarcon-Aguilar F, Roman-Ramos R. Antidiabetic Plants in Mexico and Central America.
Chapter 9. In: Soumyanath A (Editor) Traditional Medicines for Modern Times: Antidiabetic
Plants. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press; 2006; pp. 179-191.

Argueta, A. (Editor). Plantas Medicinales de Uso Tradicional en la Ciudad de México.
Mexico City: UNAM; 2014; pp. 122-123.

Jacobo-Salcedo M del R, Alonso-Castro AJ, Salazar-Olivo LA, Carranza-Alvarez C, González-
Espíndola LA, Domínguez F, Maciel-Torres SP, García-Lujan C, González-Martínez Mdel R,
Gómez-Sánchez M, Estrada-Castillón E, Zapata-Bustos R, Medellin-Milán P, García-Carrancá
A. Antimicrobial and cytotoxic effects of Mexican medicinal plants. Nat Prod Commun. 2011
6(12):1925-8.

Michel Moore, Medicinal Plants of the Desert, Museum of New Mexico Press, 1989

Kameshwaran S, Suresh V, Arunachalam G, Frank PR, Manikandan V. Evaluation of
antinociceptive and anti-inflammatory potential of flower extract Tecoma stans. Indian J
Pharmacol. 2012; 44(4):543-4. doi: 10.4103/0253-7613.99352.

Quattrocchi, U. World Dictionary of Medicinal and Poisonous Plants (3 vols.).
Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press; 2012; p. 515.

Raju S, Kavimani S, Maheshwara Rao VU, Reddy KS, Kumar GV. Floral extract of Tecoma
stans: a potent inhibitor of gentamicin-induced nephrotoxicity in vivo.
Asian Pac J Trop Med. 2011; 4(9):680-5. doi: 10.1016/S1995-7645(11)60173-9.

White R. Elsevier’s Dictionary of Plant Names of North America Including Mexico.
Amsterdam: Elsevier; 2003; p. 193.

Alonso-Castro AJ, Zapata-Bustos R, Romo-Yañez J, Camarillo-Ledesma P, Gómez-Sánchez M, Salazar-Olivo LA. The antidiabetic plants Tecoma stans (L.) Juss. ex Kunth (Bignoniaceae) and Teucrium cubense Jacq (Lamiaceae) induce the incorporation of glucose in insulin-sensitive and insulin-resistant murine and human adipocytes. J Ethnopharmacol. 2010 Jan 8;127(1):1-6. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2009.09.060. Epub 2009 Oct 8. PMID: 19818843.