Ay, ay, malunggay!

Malunggay flowers. (Photo by the author.)

We've tried the marunggay/malunggay ice cream, a culinary venture in the Ilocos (where else could it be?). Some weekends would see us buy from the organic veggie market stalls a dozen malunggay pandesal and malunggay bihon noodles for breakfast pancit.

Our NGO,Timpuyog Zambales, once looked at the feasibility of a malunggay powder project but a kilo of dry product would require considerable tonnage of green inputs (and therefore a big plantation) to make a profitable venture. 

Malunggay powder has been used in the supplemental feeding program for children in famine stricken African countries.  In our Pinoy households, this could also be added to kiddie meals, may be mixed with the cereals, porridge, and the lugaw or congee, especially for those who absolutely hate to see vegetables on their plates. 

These days, we drink a cup of malunggay 'tea' with a dash of lime juice before bedtime. We produce the healthy 'tea' using bunches of green fronds from our backyard trees hanged inside the house for air-drying. 

The marunggay (Moringa oleifera, formally) of childhood memory has grown from being the popular trees in our yard where neighbors and relatives go for the green leaves and the seasonal fruits for the dinengdeng (an Ylocano ratatouille like pinakbet) of lunch or dinner.  A relative's Igorot househelp named Berta came very often for this lowly vegetable, and thinking about it now, our moringa trees provided very rich nourishment for our growing brood of cousins. Those days, backyard vegetables were free for the asking. Today, a bundle of five malunggay fruits would cost Php20! 

From those same trees did our grandmother pick the dark green leaves for the chicken tinola she dutifully cooked for our lactating mother as my four sisters came into the world one after the other in the 1950's, and our youngest in ’60.  Pinoy baby boomers like us did not know it then when we were suckling our natural food; it was the marunggay broth that helped sustain the milk supply from our breastfeeding mothers. 

Studies dating back to the American occupation of the Philippine islands discoursed on the medical and nutritional value of the Moringa oleifera. Today, breastfeeding is being greatly encouraged by various child-care advocates, hence moringa is also getting back into the baby food picture.   

In folk medicine, tradition has it that the roots be chewed and applied to the bite of a snake to prevent the poison from spreading. A decoction of the roots is also considered a cure for scurvy; it is likewise used to calm down delirious patients.  Everyone is familiar with the leaves being chewed and applied to wounds to hasten blood clotting.   Asian-American high school students from California won a prize at the Intel Science and Engineering Fair a few years ago for their study using moringa extracts as blood coagulant.  

Some literature in the 1920's called the malunggay seed oil ben oil, reported to be good for salads and for other culinary uses.  At that time when oil lamps were still used for lighting, the ben oil was considered comparable to the best of Florence oils in the market.  Because it’s tasteless, colorless and odorless, it was considered a good material for use in the process of extracting perfumes.  Ben oil however did not grow to be as popular and commercial as the ylang-ylang oil.

It’s the green movement, the search for alternatives to OPEC oil (a matter of economics actually), that’s resurrecting the ben oil in other usable energy forms.

There’s a reason why we put the moringa flowers in the illustration. For the past several years, our scientist friend has been involved in hush-hush project, which he could not help tell - producing a high end product, an organic Viagra, as he put it, from some compound in the plant that’s most abundant in the flowers and the still limp and thin young fruits. It seems they have already successfully tested the product on experimental mice.

Our friend says the moringa’s ‘viagratic’ element affects both male and female but that could only be felt probably if there is a big intake of malunggay leaves and flowers, although in our hometown we don’t really eat the flowers.  We can gather the flowers at blooming time and convert these into some envigorating flower power potion, a salad with tomatoes and onions. Eventually, we we may yet see malunggay fruits disappear in the market when this organic viagra becomes a menfolk remedy, straight from the tree, for some embarrassing dysfunction. 

Source:  Brown, W.H. (1920).

Because we see it almost everywhere, we think that the malunggay is native to the Philippines. Linguists would tell us though that the name gives away its Sanskrit origin - marungi.  Experts say that, with a few exceptions, plants with Sanskrit origin were introduced from India or Malaysia, or probably from Java and Sumatra during the Sri-Vishaya and Madjapahit periods.  The Philippines belonged to those empires; what was left included floral souvenirs like malunggay, lasona, patola, champaka and lagundi, which were already native Philippine and thriving all over the archipelago when Magellan set foot on Sebu soil.

The Sanskrit veggie name morphed into different forms wherever the plant was grown. Thus, Moringa oleifera Lam. (horse radish tree to the English) is known as arunggai in Pangasinan; balunggai, Cuyo Islands; kalamunggai in Misamis and kalunggai in Camarines; kamalunggai, Mindoro and kamalunggi, Pampanga; malugai in Culion Island; malunggai in Tarlac, Bulacan, Zambales, Bataan, Rizal, Laguna, Manila, Batangas, Tayabas, Mindoro, Capiz, and Zamboanga; marunggai in Ilocos Norte and Sur, Abra; and maronggai in Zambales.

Thus, your name for moringa gives away your promdi-ness! [Promdi, from the, province.] 

References:

Brown, W.H. (1920).  Wild Food Plants of the Philippines. Bulletin No. 21. Bureau of Forestry, Dept. of Agriculture and Natural
     Resources.  Manila: Bureau of Printing.

__________. (1921).  Wild Food Plants of the Philippines. 2(22):104-105 and 3(22):188-189.  Bureau of Forestry, Dept. of 
     Agriculture and Natural Resources.  Manila: Bureay of Printing.  

Census Office of the Philippine Islands. (1921). Census of the Philippine Islands.  Agriculture, Medicinal Plants, Forest Lands
     and Proper Diet.  Manila:  Bureau of Printing.

Merrill, E. D. (1926).  An Enumeration of Flowering Plants. Vol. 4.  Bureau of Science.  Manila: Bureau of Printing.

Getting to know the flora of Zambales

Under the canopy of mahogany, aguho, and other trees in the Hiyas ng Kalikasan Center grow kuribetbet (inset) a.k.a. pandakaki.

We helped ran two environment-oriented youth events on 25-28 April, 2011 and we came out of it envisioning a botanical inquiry project for high school students all over the province that may lead to a network of town herbariums showcasing the diverse flora--native, indigenous, endemic and introduced--found in Zambales.  A pilot project may be initiated by the high school participants from San Narciso and Botolan towns who were taught "collection and preparation [of plant specimens] prior to botanical identification" by an expert, Dr. Edwin Tadiosa of the Botany Division of National Museum.

The twin events were both set at the one-hectare tree farm in San Vicente in San Narciso town, aptly called Hiyas ng Kalikasan Center, owned by Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento and his wife LaRainne.

The first had some 90 elementary schoolchildren from the 17 barangays of San Narciso in a one-day Likhaan para sa Kalikasan (Children’s Nature and Art Workshop) on 25th April.  While they did not go through Dr Tadiosa's brief course, they had practical exercises to make them more conscious of and caring for their natural environment.  They met with conservation activists who ran the pawikan (sea turtles) hatchery and preservation station in nearby Philippine Merchant Marine Academy (PMMA).  They also learned about raising worms to produce organic fertilizers. They gathered leaves, fruits and seeds of the flora growing in the farm, identified them with their local names, and listed the benefits that can be derived from them that they learned from their parents and relatives.  We were surprised hearing from them of the medical uses of  some plant parts that we've not known before. 

The second event had 30 students from San Narciso and Botolan public and private high schools  in a three-day stay-in Growing in Grace and Leading in Wisdom Youth Camp. Although primarily a leadership training for student council members, their course modules were tuned to environmental issues.  Their nature tripping included an early morning hike to the pawikan hatchery station, vermiculture for organic gardening, and the collection and preparation of botanical specimens from the farm under the guidance of Dr. Tadiosa.  

Dr Edwin Tadiosa, botanist from the National Museum, demonstrated and guided students in the collection and preparation of plant specimens.

 
In his presentation, Dr Tadiosa touched on some flora that are native to Zambales. Their scientific names speak of their provenance:  Cycas zambalensis Matulid & Agoo (2005), Ardisia zambalensis Merr. (1915), Bulbophyllum zambalense Ames, Rubus zambalensis Elmer (1908), Astronia zambalensis Elmer, Elaeocarpus zambalensis Elmer (1934), and Evodia zambalensis Elmer (1934).  

We looked up these native Zambales flora in The Plant List created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden.  All their scientific names except that of the Astronia and the Evodia are listed as "accepted".  The two are "unresolved".

The Cycas was the subject of our earlier blog on the Palm Sunday fronds of the people of San Antonio town.  Dr Domingo Madulid, who co-discovered it in 2005, says it is a threatened species. 

We learned that the Bulbophyllum is an orchid, and there are some 1,955 accepted species names some of which like the zambalense are also Philippine natives-- bataanense, maquilinguense, pampangense, surigaense, zamboangense, among others named after their places of discovery.

We saw pictures of three other Ardisias in Dr Madulid's A Pictorial Cyclopedia of Philippine Ornamental Plants.  We presume that the zambalense would have similarities with its cousins confertiflora from Batanes Island ("small, light pink to violet" flowers), crenata ("alternate, dark green and leathery" leaves) and pyramidalis ("round, red turning black" fruits) found in Philippine gardens.

There's just Rubus spp in Dr Madulid's book, which he describes as"small shrubs ... with prickly stems and twigs ... white, pink or red [flowers], usually in clusters ... fruits [that] are usually red or orange berries."  There are 23 species in the Philippines, he says, and 15 are endemic to the country.  

We hope to find something pictorial on these Zambales species esp. the Astronia, the Elaeocarpus and the Evodia (would this be similar to the imported suaveolens?).

Our encounters with Dr Madulid and Dr Tadiosa made us take a second look at the flora living in our neighborhood.

Fruits of the apatot or noni plant in our backyard by the beach.

There are, for example, several apatot (Ilokano name) trees growing by the fence of our beach house, and they're all bearing fruits. Many don't know it but this is the source of the Noni juice that was the rage of quite recent times.  Dr Madulid said they are either the Morinda citrifolia Linn. (usually found in the forest) or Morinda bracteata (found by the beach).  We brought a fruit-laden branch to the botanical workshop, and Dr Tadiosa confirmed our plant is a bracteata.  

If there's one thing we haven't forgotten since boyhood is this verse we sang out loud when people tended to be selfish with a few coins to spare for our Christmas caroling.  It's about gifting them with apatot leaves, and if they get offended, why they should come down so we can pummel them with our bare fists!  We dared them with --

Bulong ti apatot / Paskua yo nga naimot / Umulog ti makarurod / Ta narnaran mi ti dandanog!  (Leaves of apatot / gifts for selfish ones / Come down if you're angry / And we'll pounced on you!

There are plenty of kuribetbet (Ilokano) in our town, and we remember this to be the most popular shrub during Christmas time.  It has plenty of branches, and that makes it best for Christmas trees.  This is the pandakaki in other parts of the country, the Tabernaemontana pandacaqui Moir, which is in the list of Philippine folkloric medicinal plants.  

We told the high school participants about the science research project of a high school girl from the Ilocos on the use of the pandakaki as a source of organic pesticide against some rice worms.  She'd been seeing her grandfather pounding leaves, soaking them in water and spraying the concoction on the rice plants, and she thought of giving the practice a scientific framework.  She won a grand award for it at the International Science & Engineering Fair in the US four years ago.

Banaba trees are a-bloom in our town.

It's summer and the banaba trees lining the rural roads in our town are blooming profusely. The high school students tarried a bit on their way to the sea turtle hatchery to have their picture taken against a backdrop of violet banaba flowers.  Of course, this tree--the Lagerstroemia speciosa Linn.--is widely known for its folkloric medicinal value. 

We hope the provincial science coordinator of the Department Education would look at our suggestion of having the high school students start work on an herbariums of Zambales flora.  If we heard it right, the leadership training participants included activities along this line in their action plan for next year.

The organizers of the youth training events--Department of Education, Magsaysay Memorial College, Timpuyog Zambales and Education for Life Foundation--will have green projects of teams from five high schools to follow through during the coming school year:  pawikan protection, vermi-composting, and herbarium initiatives.