Origin

Jamaica

Folk medicinal uses

Early Jamaican medical authors say that this pungent plant was much used in baths and fomentations for nervous weakness. Maya medicine men used it to treat venereal sores. The only use we are able to record in Jamaica today is as an insecticide which is said to kill bed-bugs.

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