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Botany
A shrub to a small tree, growing to a height of 5 meters, with numerous,
long, slender and drooping branches. Leaves arelight green, narrow lanceolate,
up to 5 cm long. Spikes are 7-8 cm long. Flowers are bright red in dense
cylindrical spikes.
Constituents
and properties
• A study in India showed the leaves of
Callistemon viminalis yielded an oil: 1,8-Cineole (61.7%), -pinene (24.2%)
and menthyl acetate (5.3%) were the major components.
• Antibacterial, anthelminthic
Distribution
Widely cultivated in the Philippines.
Grows well in the Baguio area.
Parts utilized
Leaves.
Uses
Folkloric
Not known for medicinal
applications in the Philippines.
Studies
• Anti-quorum
sensing: (1) Bacterial
intercellular communication or quorum sensing (QS) is believed to control
the pathogenesis of many bacterial organisms. C. viminalis is one of
several plants studied that showed to possess anti-QS activity, a potential
new direction for the treatment of bacterial infections. (2) Extracts of plants, including C viminalis, caused the inhibition of QS genes and QS-controlled factors with marginal effects on bacterial growth, suggesting the quorum-quenching mechanisms are unrelated to static or cidal effects.
• Anthelminthic
activity: In veterinary studies: The anthelmintic
activity of the essential oils of Callistemon viminalis against earthworms
and tapeworms has revealed it to exhibit in vitro efficacy better than
piperazine phosphate. The activity of these oils against hookworms was
comparable to that of hexyle resorcinol (Garg & Kasera, 1982).
• Insecticidal:
Study yielded two novel epimeric compounds,
viminadione A and viminadione B, Viminadione A exhibited moderate insecticidal
activity.
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Anti-infective:
One of three plants screened for inhibition of opportunistic
human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa that showed reduction in toxin
production and mortality and suggests a potential for anti-infective
development.
•
Chemical
Composition / Antibacterial:
Study on chemical composition and antibacterial activity yielded
12 compnonets from the leaves of CV. Themajor components were 1,8-cineole
and a-pinene. The oils exhibited inhibitionn against S faecalis, S aureus,
B cereus, S marcesens.
Availability
Cultivated.
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