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Libidibia ferrea
Also called Leopardtree
In Singapore: Leopard Tree, Brazilian Ironwood (Grown in Singapore)
2 NParks heritage trees in Singapore: Found in Mount Emily Park; Found in Esplanade Park
Libidibia ferrea is a Brazilian tree (species, family Fabaceae) also called leopardtree or juca, grown as a drought-tolerant ornamental and shade tree in warm, seasonally dry climates. It needs full sun and well-drained soil, and it is best kept frost-free.
Libidibia ferrea, formerly Caesalpinia ferrea, and commonly known as Brazilian ironwood, leopardtree or jucá, is a tree found in Brazil.
In the Amazon region, Libidibia ferrea has extensive use in popular medicine, known mainly as "jucá", being indicated to treat several health conditions, in the form of teas and infusions to treat bronchopulmonary conditions, diabetes, rheumatism, cancer, disorders gastrointestinal, diarrhea; in addition to topical treatment of wounds and bruises. Although it has many indications of use for treating different diseases, jucá pods are mainly used by the Amazon people for the treatment of wounds, usually in alcoholic solution, and scientific studies have already shown the healing activity of different parts of jucá in different animal species, such as goats, rats and donkeys. A recent study that compared different formulations and concentrations of the ethanolic extract from jucá (Libidibia ferrea) pods showed that the natural products showed excellent healing activity in open dermal wounds in dogs, and also had moderate in vitro antimicrobial activity.
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Libidibia ferrea by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
