PARTE UTILIZADA= Used part: Hojas.

ACCION FARMACOLOGICA= Pharmacological action: Antisifilítico, antioftálmico, diurético, astringente.

COMPOSICIÓN QUÍMICA= Chemical composition: Euphorbia brasiliensis Lamck. and E. thymifolia Burm. are small plants yielding 0.09-0.25% essential oil of bright green color with a peculiar pungent smell and irritating taste; d420 0.8685; among its constituents were identified: cymol, carvacrol, limonene, 2 sesquiterpenes and salicylic acid; used in medicinal soaps for the treatment of erysipelas, also as a spray to keep flies and mosquitoes from inhabited rooms, and as a vermifuge for dogs and farm foxes.

ZONA GEOGRAFICA= Geografical zone: NE y NO de Argentina. 

DIVERSIDAD GENÉTICA Y MEJORAMIENTO DE PLANTAS MEDICINALES= Medicinal plants and improvement of medicinal herbs:

Guard cell pairs were dissected from freeze-dried leaves of plants representing 15 families, including monocots, dicots, and pteridophytes.  All 3 major photosynthetic C pathways (C2, C4, and Crassulacean acid metab.) were represented.  These individual guard cell pairs were assayed quant. for ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase specific activity.  Assay sensitivity averaged 0.08 pmol of ribulose bisphosphate-dependent phosphoglycerate formation (i.e. 100-fold more sensitive than required to detect the activity present in a single Vicia faba mesophyll cell).  The calcd. specific activities for guard cells and mesophyll cells averaged 4 and 472 mmol/kg dry wt./h, resp.  For all species surveyed, (a) the enzyme activity calcd. for guard cells was below the detection limit of the assay, or (b) the specific activity (wt. or cell basis) calcd. for guard cells was <1% of the specific activity calcd. for adjacent mesophyll cells.  Based on this survey, the generalization is made that the photosynthetic C redn. pathway is absent, or virtually so, in guard cell chloroplasts.  

Origin

Jamaica

Folk medicinal uses

This plant should be included in the list of small herbaceous spurges the juice of which is used in the removal of warts and to make tea for colds.

1) TOURSARKISSIAN, Martín. Plantas medicinales de Argentina : sus nombres botánicos, vulgares, usos y distribución geográfica. Buenos Aires : Hemisferio Sur,1980, p.52.

2) Freise, Fred. W. Essential oils from Brazilian Euphorbiaceae. Perfumery and Essential Oil Record. 1935, vol.26, p.219-20.
 
3) Outlaw, William H., Jr.; Tarczynski, Mitchell C.; Anderson, Loran C. Taxonomic survey for the presence of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase activity in guard cells.  Plant Physiology. 1982, vol.70, nº4, p.1218-1220.

4) Asprey, G.F; Phylis Thornton/ Medicinal plants of Jamaica. Parts III & IV. – p. 56.