| Botany
Cassia spectabilis is a small- to medium-sized tree, 10 meters
or taller, the branchlets softly hairy. Leaves are alternate and pinnately
compound. Leaflets are oblong-lanceolate, up to 15 pairs, 7.5 cm
long, green and smooth above, finely hairly underneath. Flowering branches
are up to 60 cm long. Flowers are in racemes, spikes or cymes, clustered,
bright yellow, up to 3.5 cm across. Perianth consists of a calyx and
a corolla of 5 segments each. Pods are cylindrical, brown, and up to 30 cm long.
Distribution
Introduced after the Second
World War.
Commonly cultivated in gardens, parks and along the highways.
Constituents
and properties
• Phytochemical
study of the flowers yielded three new piperidine alkaloids: (-)-3-O-acetylspectaline,
(-)-7-hydroxyspectaline and iso-6 -spectaline, together with known (-)spectaline.
Uses
Folkloric
• No recorded folkloric
medicinal use in the Philippines.
• In Thailand,
traditionally used for ringworm and skin diseases.
Studies
• Antifungal:
Cassia spectabilis methanol
leaf extract study showed significant antifungal activity and suggests
a potential use in infections caused by C albicans.
• Antioxidant:
Phytochemical studies isolated a new piperidine alkaloid
(3-O-feruloylcassine and known spectaline and 3-O-acetylspectaline which
showed moderate antioxidant activities and marginal COX-2 inhibition.
• Antimicrobial:
Study showed aqueous extracts of S. spectabilis to be effective
against food-borne pathogen B. cereus.
Availability
Wildcrafted. |
