In my last blog post I examined coffee, the official beverage of NYC movers, shakers, and deal-makers and source of my favorite alkaloid, caffeine. This article is something of a sequel. While the consensus seems to be that a sequel is never as good as the original, I could muster a boatload of rabid Star Wars fans that would argue to the contrary. In any case, my sequel involves a frosty highball of fine aromatic gin, a juicy wedge of lime, and a comfortable seat in the shade—so how bad could it possibly be? The alternate ending is not so pleasurable—it features high fever, chills, profuse sweating, nausea, and a plethora of other equally objectionable symptoms. Intrigued? Confused? Let me elaborate.
Outside of a handful of plant geeks, most folks probably aren’t that familiar with trees of the genus Cinchona (pronounced “sin-cho-nah”). They are native to the tropical Andean region of South America with some species reaching north into Central America or west as far as French Polynesia. It’s a pretty tree by most standards. The big Cinchona pubescens in the Upland Rainforest house of the Conservatory bears large, soft, elliptic green leaves and attractive panicles of rose-pink flowers in spring. But truly—anyone can stand around and look pretty. What makes this tree so fascinating is what it can do.
Ana María Ruiz is a herbarium data assistant for the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium at the New York Botanical Garden. She is working on the digitization of fungal specimens for the Macrofungi Collections Consortium Project and is a research assistant for the Lichens of the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain Project.
A plant specimen of Bixa orellana collected in Puerto Rico in 1993 by M. H. Nee, Ph.D.
Bixa orellana, also known as annatto, is a commonly used staple found in kitchens around the world. Everyone at one point or another has consumed it without even knowing it because it is almost tasteless. Used primarily as a food coloring, it has been added to butter, margarine, cheese, cured meats, rice, ice cream, and many other foods.
Nestlé chocolate will soon be added to that list. Nestlé USA recently announced that it was removing all artificial flavors and colorings from all of its chocolate candy by the end of 2015. Instead, the company will begin using annatto, particularly in its reformulation of Butterfinger candy bars. Annatto will provide the natural coloring in the crunchy orange center of the chocolate bar.
The New York Botanical Garden holds collections of the plant and fruit specimens, which can be observed, admired, or studied in the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium. As part of the Steere Herbarium’s digitization projects, the images of the plant and fruit specimens are also available through the Botanical Garden’s C.V. Starr Virtual Herbarium. And live specimens grow in the Lowland Tropical Rain Forest Gallery of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
Maya Jaffe graduated from Florida International University and is currently an intern at the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium, where she is working on a project to digitize Thelephora and Agaric mushrooms.
“A handful of qinghao immersed with 2 liters of water, wring out the juice and drink it all.”
That was the recipe prescribed in 340 AD by Chinese alchemist Ge Hong in his A Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies as a treatment for malaria (1). For the bulk of human existence, people looked toward the forest and their gardens for remedies for their ailments, just as we now browse the aisles of our local pharmacy. So many of the modern drugs we rely on for our health have botanical precursors. In a way, Ge Hong’s advice still stands today because Quinghao, also known as sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua), contains the chemical compound artemisinin, found in most of the leading antimalarial drugs (2).
Artemisia annua is native to Eurasia and is cultivated on a large scale in China and Vietnam. This member of the Asteraceae (the daisy or sunflower family) is a shrub with a single stem that typically reaches a meter in height and has alternating branches with dissected, fern-like leaves and small, yellow flower heads. And, as the label on this 1957 specimen from the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium notes, “herb has medicinal uses.”
Ancient Chinese medicine typically utilizes the above-ground parts of the plant, but now scientists have narrowed their focus to the leaves, from which artemisinin can be extracted easily. Because of its chemical composition, artemisinin is highly unstable when warm and therefore has a short shelf life in hot environments. Because of this and the general expense of extraction, Dr. Jay Keasling at the University of California Berkeley is currently exploring the synthetic production of artemisinin (4).
While appreciating modern technology and scientific advances that allow for the development of synthetic drugs, we should recognize and value the medicinal properties inherent in many plants in their natural state, such as sweet wormwood. One way to do that is with The New York Botanical Garden’s Wild Medicine iPhone app, which explores the medicinal properties of various plants throughout the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
Next time you’re out in nature and admiring the flora, try to remember that while the aesthetic beauty of plants is breathtaking, those same plants may be vital to every breath that you take.
Tu, Youyou. The Discovery of Artemisinin (qinghaosu) and Gifts from Chinese Medicine. Nature Medicine17.10 (2011): 1217-220.
White, N. J. “Assessment of the Pharmacodynamic Properties of Antimalarial Drugs in Vivo.”Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. U.S. National Library of Medicine. 1997.
WHO Monograph on Good Agricultural and Collection Practices (GACP) for Artemisia Annua L. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 2006.
Ro, Dae-Kyun, Eric M. Paradise, Mario Ouellet et al. Production of the Antimalarial Drug Precursor Artemisinic Acid in Engineered Yeast.Nature440.7086 (2006): 940-43.
En Tu Comunidad is a public affairs program on the Spanish-language network Unimas that serves the New York City metropolitan area. The show is hosted by Enrique Teuteló.
Enrique invited me on the show to talk about my research in ethnomedicine—specifically, the use of medicinal plants in Latino and Caribbean communities in New York City, especially within the community from the Dominican Republic—and how this research can help physicians establish a better relationship with their Spanish-speaking patients.
Read on for a short English summary of our conversation, plus the full video of the interview in Spanish.
