The
leaflets of the compound leaves have the curious habit of folding
together after being touched or at night.
It flowers and fruits through much of the year, but with major
flushes of flower in the middle of the wet and the middle of the dry
season.
The large, ornamental fruit ripen through pale yellow, when their
flavor is pleasantly acid, to deep golden orange, when they become
sweet and deliciously tangy.
Propagation is from seed or more commonly by grafts or air-layers .
In various ways in traditional medicine (e.g. skin disorders,
fevers).Crushed leaves or shoots for chicken fox, ringworm, and
heaache. Fruit is laxative, refrigerant, antiscourbic; stimulate
appetite, febrifuge antidysenteric. Infusion, decoction or tincture
of crushed seeds is emmenagogue, lactagogue, abortifacient in large
dose. Seeds as narcotic, emetic, powdered as anodyne in asthma,
colic, jaundice. Counters ringworm. Leaves and flower consumed as
antitusive and febrifuge; for cold. Fruit is ideal for hypertension,
diabetes and as antiparalytic, hemostatic, antiemetic, and diuretic. |