Botany
Chi-it is a shrub or small tree, almost entirely smooth, with a strong aromatic smell. Bark is corky, with conspicuous young stems with thick conical prickles raising rising from a corky base. Spines are shining and sharp, growing on branchlets. Leaves are alternate, usually with 2 to 6 pairs of leaflets. Petioles and rachis are narrowly winged. Leaflets are elliptic-lanceolate, 2 to 8 centimeters long and 1 to 1.8 centimeters wide. Flowers are small, yellow, usually unisexual, borne in dense lateral panicles. Fruit is usually a solitary carpel dehiscing ventrally, about 3 millimeters in diameter, tubercled, red, and strongly aromatic.
Distribution
- Only in the Benguet areas, in thickets about limestone cliffs and boulders, at an altitude of 1,300 to 1,500 meters.
- Also occurs in India to southeasten China.
Constituents
- Bark yields a bitter crystalline principle, identifcal to berberine, and a volatile oil and resin. The carpels yield a volatile oil, resin, a yellow acid principle, and a crystalline solid body, xanthoxylin.
- Carpels of the fruit yield an essential oil which is isomeric with turpentine ahd like eucalyptus oil in odor and properties.
- The bark contains berberine.
- The essential oil from the seeds consists entirely - over 85% - of the hydrocarbone 1-a-phellandrene and also a small quantity of linalool and an unidentified sesquiterpene.
- Bark yields active compounds: alkaloids (g-fagarine, b-fagarine, magnoflorine, laurifoline, nitidine, chelerythrine, tambetarine and cadicine), coumarins (xanthyletin, zanthoxyletin, alloxanthyletin), and resin, tannin and volatile oil.
Properties
Fruit considered antiseptic, carminative, disinfectant, deodorant, stomachic.
Leaves and fruit as carminative, sudorific, emmenagogue and astringent.
Parts used
Bark, seeds, fruits, leaves.
Uses
Culinary
In China and India, fruit used as condiment.
Folkloric
- Decoction or infusion of bark and seeds used as an aromatic tonic in fevers, dyspepsia, and cholera.
- Fruit, as well as the branches and thorns, used as a remedy for toothache; also, as carminative and stomachic.
- Elsewhere, used for asthma, bronchitis, cholera, fever, indigestion, toothaches, varicose veins and rheumatism.
- Sino-Annamites use the leaves and fruits as carminative, sudorific, emmenagogue, and astringent..
- In Indian system of medicine, used as stomachic, carminative, and anthelmintic. Fruits and seeds used as aromatic tonic in fever, dyspepsia and cholera.
Studies
• Phenolic Constituents: Study isolated two new phenolic constituents from the seeds - 3-methoxy-11-hydroxy-6,8-dimethylcarboxylate biphenyl and 3,5,6,7-tetrahydroxy-3',4'-dimethoxyflavone-5-β-d-xylopyranoside along with five known compounds.
• Antifungal / Insect Repellent: Essential oil of the fruits of ZA showed repellent activity against insect Allacophora foveicollis and fungistatic activity against 24 fungi, including aflatoxin-producing strains of A flavus and A parasiticus.
• Hepatoprotective: Study of the ethanolic extract of leaves of Z armatum on CCl4-induced hepatotoxicity in rats showed significant decrease in liver enzymes and liver inflammation, supported by histopath studies on the liver. Results exhibited significant hepatoprotective activity.
• Insecticidal: Study of the essential oil of Zanthoxylum armatum showed high and rapid poison activity on Aedes albopictus and Culex quinquefasciatus, showing a potential as natural insecticides against mosquitoes.
• Essential Oil / Larvicidal: Study of essential oil yielded at least 28 compounds, consisting mainly of oxygenated monoterpenes and monoterpenes. The larvae of three mosquito species - A. aegypti, A. stephensi, and C. quinquefasciatus - were susceptible to the essential oil composition and presents a potential for the development of alternative plant based larvicides.
• Spasmolytic: Crude extract of ZA caused concentration-dependent relaxation of spontaneous and high K+ induced contractions in isolated rabbit jejunum. Results showed Zanthoxylum armatum exhibits spasmolytic effects, mediated possibly through Ca++ antagonistic mechanism, which provides pharmacologic base for its medicinal use in the gastrointestinal, respiratory, and cardiovascular disorders.
Availability
Wild-crafted.
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