AyapanaAyapana triplinervis

Did you know?

• Triplinervis means "three-nerved," after the three prominent veins that run along each narrow leaf^{[2, 9]}.

• Two of its plant compounds, the coumarins ayapin and ayapanin, take their names from the plant^{[2, 4]}.

• Crush a leaf and it smells strongly of coumarin, the same compound that gives new-mown hay its sweet smell^{[2, 4, 5]}.

• Oil distilled from ayapana can be more than 80 percent a single aromatic compound, thymohydroquinone dimethyl ether^{[6, 10]}.

• The genus name Ayapana was borrowed from the plant's everyday name when botanists gave it a genus of its own^{[1, 2]}.

• From its Amazon home it has reached the Caribbean, Mauritius, Réunion, Rodrigues, India, Java, the Philippines and Vietnam^{[1, 2]}.

Origins and history

Ayapana is a smooth, low-growing perennial, woody at the base, with narrow, lance-shaped leaves and small heads of pale pink flowers^{[1, 2]}. Its native home is the Amazon basin of Brazil and the forests of Ecuador and French Guiana^{[1, 2]}.

The plant reached European botany twice over. It was first published as Eupatorium triplinerve in 1794, in Vahl's Symbolae Botanicae^[3]. In 1803 Étienne Ventenat published it again, as Eupatorium ayapana, in Jardin de la Malmaison, an illustrated horticultural work^[3]. Both names placed it in Eupatorium, the genus of North American boneset, and both now count as synonyms^{[3, 8]}. The botanists R.M. King and H. Robinson later moved the plant into its own genus, taking the local name ayapana for it, and today it is Ayapana triplinervis^{[1, 2]}.

Along the way ayapana crossed oceans. Kew records it as introduced to the Caribbean, to India, Bangladesh and Southeast Asia, and to the Indian Ocean islands of Mauritius, Réunion, Rodrigues and the Seychelles^[1]. It is now at home on the islands of the western Indian Ocean, where it has become a familiar folk herb, and it has recently been added to the French Pharmacopoeia^{[6, 9]}. In Brazil it is known as japana^[9]. Across its range, its leaves are brewed into a tonic tea^{[4, 9]}.

Traditional uses

Clinical studies of ayapana in people are still few, but its traditional use is rich and remarkably consistent: across its range, people make a simple tea from its leaves^{[4, 9]}.

• An aromatic leaf tea

  Fresh or dried leaves are steeped in hot water and drunk as a tonic tea with a spicy, bitter-aromatic taste.^{[4, 9]}

• Digestive comfort

  In Brazil, Peru, the Guianas, Mauritius and India, ayapana leaf has traditionally been taken for digestive comfort.*^[9]

• Occasional queasiness

  In Brazil and the Guianas, ayapana has also been taken to settle the stomach. For occasional queasiness.*^[9]

• An island tradition

  In Mauritius, Réunion and the neighboring islands of the western Indian Ocean, ayapana leaf is part of local folk tradition.^{[6, 9]}

Plant compounds

Ayapana is best known for its coumarins, including ayapin, ayapanin and coumarin itself^{[2, 4]}. Coumarin is the fragrant compound that perfumers also draw from tonka beans^[5]. The leaves also yield a pale green essential oil dominated by thymohydroquinone dimethyl ether, along with smaller amounts of other terpenes^{[4, 6, 10]}, and the oil has been used in perfumery^[4].