Dodonaea viscosa

Dodonaea viscosa and Bio-Actigeneration       

****Note: Before gathering any plant. Know and study that plant. Identify the plant!! Know that Dodonaea, hop tree has deadly look alike plants growing frequently, especially in urban environments, in the same habitat. That can easily be mistaken of one another. In other words don't gather or use this plant until you can tell the difference. The plant i am talking can kill- Until you can tell them apart, leave them alone.***     

Dodonaea viscosa is a ubiquitous plant. Ranked one of the top four most versatile herbs in any first aid kit. Top three herbs for liver restoration on the same level of Milk Thistle. And, and yes, a cool name for a baby if you're PG or heading that way, or plan to adopt- use it, for a name that is- be original. A power plant, an adaptogenist actualizer. Use the plant, use the name. No body cares what you do anyway. Nice baby name. Or legally change your name, or a new ... tattoo, I'm Dodonaea. The plant tells me, please use me. Don't pass me by. Please. 'Hey you!', 'Yeah you.', come on over. As you get older time speeds up, so don't wait. At a certain point there is a convergence that smells like adaptogenic activation across the board, in and out,
Up and down, inside outside, internal external - no need to go any further hop seed bush.
                          

    Dodonaea, named for a 16^th century Flemish botanist, named after a man living in the only place where it doesn't grow- go figure. Viscosa meaning the young leaves are sticky. Makes sense. Belonging to family Sapindaceae soap berry. Also known as hops bush by taste, though unrelated to Humulus. Kinda of resembles wild hops when it dries in that both are papery, the strobes of hops and the seeds of hop bush. Used by early Australian settlers for beer brewing, the same in Mexico-America because of it’s bitter hop-like flavor. Does it taste like hops? It is bitter with a little warming in there.
                                       

   It grows extensively in Arizona from the Superstitions through Phoenix, diagonally south into Tucson and then into the Sierra Madre south to Sonora. Stepping out of climate controlled box you’ll see it and say, ‘Oh yeah, I know that one.’ It’s also used as an urban landscape plant because it’s green all year, pretty and lush and drought tolerant. So you'll see it around town as a hedge along city streets. See it in the washes. See it on the rocky slopes. It's there, trust me. You can find people who say, invasive, others say native. Pan-global, as in everywhere. It's here and not going anywhere.
                                             

     It’s a perennial shrubby evergreen bushy shrub. Hard to miss as it’s 3feet to 7-8 feet high. So it's a big loud in your face plant. It doesn't hide, it's in the open. Dodonaea has come out, showing tattoos, doesn't need special soil or conditions. I take that back. It's a desert droughty plant that likes hot and drought. Got snow? You're out of the loop. OK? The leaves are striking green. Are the leaves pretty? Yes the leaves are pretty. They are sleek, long, thin like a acrobat or yogini clothes hanger model, with thick auburn hair who can bend backwards all the way down, smelling like a mix between patchouli, BO and youthful fertility. Leaves with lines long and thin with a single center prominent vein or simple, essentially sessile, linear to oblanceolate. The seeds are winged like a big saltbrush wing, 3-4 lobes not consistent, with a papery covering. It’s in washes and rocky slopes. Can you find it where I live? Probably. Maybe. I don't know where you live.                      

    I learned about this plant first from somebody special, an original and maybe the original bioregional herbalist who coined the term, which many tried then tried to steal unsuccessfully. this person often working out of teaching Tucson, Arizona and the sky islands. Please enjoy, play guess the herbalist here. ???

     Dodonaea viscosa is a rare pan-global native medicinal plant: native and prolific in Arizona SW, Australia, Africa, Tasmania, Hawaii, Asia. It’s hard to find a more plentiful underused plant than Dodonaea viscosa. The literature of research is extensive both from an ethnobotanical and scientific standpoint. When describing Dodonaea it literally sounds like many different plants. Scientific study reads like a mix up, a wish mash of several plants, partially because they are referring to the wholeplant outside of commercial standardized extract.  

     Where ever it grows whether Asia, Australia, Africa or the hot desert southwest of North America, native people have used it for basically similar uses. Everything. What native people? Everyone. Look don't talk native  a typical mongrel American who can only trace  pedigree back to my Mom, and she is dead, what do I know about native? Nothing. Please.

     What medicinal uses? Everything. Which again makes it hard to categorize. Imagine a plant for sprains, pin worms, tooth ache, soothing skin wash, GI ulcers. How about weight loss and orgasm? Sorry those are two things it doesn't do...but wait...In oil as a salve, water as a tea, alcohol as a tincture, direct as a poultice. What? 

     Movement. Relaxation. Liver protectant more protective than milk thistle. Respiratory. Anti-bacterial. Anti-fungal, inside, outside- plentiful, not at risk, attractive but no shaved head sides with bangs yet. Yet we may get that soon, hopefully. What?

    When reading the literature, then reviewing my hand written notes from JJ’s field school, I find myself saying, “Wait, did I mix it up with another plant?’, surely it can’t do all that? And I ask why would a plant with so many vital uses be virtually unused, unheard of, and unknown? 
                                          

   The only answer I have is that lives and information has grown so insulated and groupthink-affirming, fake-news that herbal info just snow balls into cliché sound bites of predictability. blah blah blah. He said. She said. I bought it from superfood Activator Snake oil tribe. Wow. Sorry. Can’t be bought. Can’t be sold. Can't buy it ha ha ha. 

      There are true informational walls based on how can I sell this? It’s difficult for many to use a plant that has no monetary value. Well you can use it and it is worthless. You can use it and explore what it does without attaching a dollar amount. You can use it without worrying about depleting it, cause it's everywhere and not going anywhere. If anything it has an expanding range. Is it native to North America? Experts say it is, do you believe experts? I do rarely sometimes.

    Few are going directly to the plants. Remember there is no U/you in few. So just do it. Step out of the box. Grab a couple handful of the new tender recent growth. Dry it. Taste it. Salve it. Tincture it. Try it. Check out Dodonaea If you’re a person who is going to the plants directly, way to go. Continue. Advice on use:I can tell you what not to do because I have failed so often. I can not tell what to do because I have succeeded so infrequently. 

     So please work on removing sound bite fake information: What? Hypericum St John’s wort = herbal prozac, skin sensitivity for blondes. Reishi: Adaptogen, activator, super food, cures cancer, female viagra. The tendency to description of plants with a price tag. Rarely refer to anything except money toilet tornadoes with slick predictively smooth sale pitch. Always pointing toward, ‘Who said it?’, rarely, “What did they say?” Frequently go to the plants find out from them what they are for. 
   Wait, going to the plants, "Sounds dangerous." It is dangerous. So use caution. Educate yourself because there are poisonous look alikes. Poisonous look alikes? Yes, Definitely. Yes deadly poisonous look alike also a landscape plant, Oleander. So if you can't ID it, don't gather. First educate yourself.
    Go dangerous, step out of the box. Fall on your face. Use Dodonea to nurse you're bruises and scrapes. Doesn't care about body arm pit hair or if you can be smelled from 25 feet away. Likes wind. Encourages movement.

     While reviewing my notes I kept saying, ‘C’mon Jay you’re making that up.’ At a certain point you got to make stuff up, it's about the plants. We’re a community of entertainers.

      Liver gall bladder stimulating and simultaneously relaxing. Relaxation sinew and ligament, spreading and softening, looser. Squeezing out bile, increased peristalsis. 
             

   Taste:YOU taste it, don’t let me typecast it for you. Acrid, pungent slight sweetness along with bitterness. Resembles Larrea tridenta in taste, not as sweet. Warming bitter, yes. The perfect bitter? Close.

Carminative- dispels gas

Antispasmodic- smooths out muscles similar to estafiate. Better than Silk Tassel, ho ho ho. You salivate, movement, relax. Wait did you say antispasmodic, like silk tassel, and pin worms parasites? wow, are we talking lyme yet? close.

                 

Topically, in Sonora and world wide for scrapes, wounds, as a wash, fomentation, poultice for sprains.  Also to soothe skin. Is it anti-microbial on the skin? Yes. Helps healing with rashes abrasions? Yes.

Liver restorer: Silymarin milk thistle a standard against what other things are measured for liver. Liver enzymes to normal homeostasis. Enhanced detoxification of liver.  These hepatoprotective effects were better than the positive control silymarin. 

Respiratory and topical:Antifungal- chronic respiratory infections in SW from dust and soil born organisms, adjunct to Chillopsis. (Desert willow) Live in Arizona? Got a cough with athletes foot? Mixing up a batch of stinky kombuchu candida down below? You are good to go.

       

Internally: promising antiulcer activity. Also inhibited acid secretion to prevent ulcer aggravation. Would combine well with Canadian fleabane for GI gut health. Is it gluten free? Totallly.

Wound healing_ as a wash

Seeds- analgesic: toothe ache

Anti-inflammatory did I say anti-inflammatory? 

The antimicrobial activity inhibition of candida albicans in studies. three Gram negative bacteria: Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhi, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Both for toothache and candida, mouth issues immuno compromised HIV patients.

So what will you use it for? Probably better does it work for you? Or What can’t you use it for? Find it, use it, don't abuse it.

  Reference:

John Slattery:Tucson, AZ hand written Field Notes

Charles Kane, Medicinal Plants of American SouthWest, Lincoln Town Press 2011-2016

Siddiqui, A. A. 1998 Chemical and pharmacological evaluation of Dodonaea viscosa Asian Journal of Chemistry, 10, 14-16. 

DODONAEA VISCOSA LINN.-AN OVERVIEW 

M.SANDHYA RANI*, PROF.RAO.S.PIPPALLA*, PROF KRISHNA MOHAN** 

A review on Dodonaea viscosa: A potential medicinal plant Prof Dr Ali Esmail Al-Snafi 

Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine, Thi qar University, Iraq. 

Hautriwaic acid as one of the hepatoprotective constituent of Dodonaea viscosa

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Medicinal Activity of Dodonaea viscosa —A preliminary study by Andrew Pengelly  2008