Botany names

Description - Moringa Oleifera is a middle sized tree, wood soft, corly bark, with tomentose young parts. Leaves 3 pinnate, slender rachis, thickened and articulated at the base, pinnae and pinnales opposite, decidueres white flowers in large puberulous panicles. Fruits are pods reaching 18 in long, 9-ribbed seeds 3 angled and winged.

Chemical Constituents- Stems contain 4-hydroxymellein, Beta-sitosterol . Gum contains aldotriouronic acid from hydrolysis. Leaves contain aspartic acid, glutamic acid, glycine, threonine, alanine, valine, isoleucine, histidine, lysine, methionine. Flowers contain traces of alkaloid, also wax, quercetin and kaempferol. Root bark contains two alkaloids moringine and moringinine and root spirochin alkaloid. Pods contain polysaccharide, globulin and prolamin. Seed contains glycoside moringyne, fatty oil. Oil contains fatty acids, sterols. It contains moringine and moringinine. Ptergospermine is antibiotic principle which is active against gram positive, gram negative and acid fast bacteria.

Use - Fruit, flower, seeds, leaf are used as food, bark is used as an analgesic,. Used as medicne in tumors, abceses, good for heart, eyes, used in cough cold, inflamatory disorders, goiter, and bone disorders. --- All parts used in ascites, venomqus bites, rheumatism and as a cardiac and circulatory stimulant. Roots rubefacient and vescicant. Leaves useful in scurvy and catarrhal affections. Flowers tonic, diuretic and cholagogue. Seeds antipyretic. Seed oil applied in rheumatism Gum used for carious teeth. all parts are used in rheumatism and antispasmodic. bark is said to cause abortions.