Leucaena leucocephala

HABIT: Leucaena leucocephala is a medium sized fast growing tree belongs to the family Fabaceae. The specific name ‘leucocephala’ comes from ‘leu’ meaning white and ‘cephala’, meaning head, referring to the flowers. It grows up to 20m height. Leaves are looking like that of tamarind having white flowers tinged with yellow, and having long flattened pods. Seeds are dark brown with hard shining seed coat. The tree has multifarious uses like firewood, timber, greens, fodder, green manure, provide shade, controls soil erosion. 

CONSERVATION STATUS: Evaluated as 'Not Evaluated' by IUCN.

MEDICINAL USES:  The seeds of leucocephala have great medicinal properties and are used to control stomachache, as contraception and abortifacient. The seed gum used as a binder in tablet formulation [21, 22]. Sulfated glycosylated form of polysaccharides from the seeds was reported to possess significant cancer chemo-preventive and anti-proliferative activities. The extracts of the seeds has reported as anthelmintic, antidiabetic and has a broad spectrum antibacterial activity. Recently, the seed oil was used in engineering as a novel biodevice useful in biomembrane modeling in lipophilicity determination of drugs and xenobiotics. The plant is reported to be a worm repellent.

(Meena Devi, V. N., Ariharan, V. N., & Nagendra Prasad, P. (2013). Nutritive value and potential uses of Leucaena leucocephala as biofuel—A mini review. Research Journal of Pharmaceutical, Biological and Chemical Sciences, 4(1), 515-521.)

ETHNOBOTANICAL USES: It is consumed by humans in Central America, Indonesia and Thailand. It can be eaten in processed and unprocessed forms. In Java, the seeds are fermented and are eaten as sprouts or bean cake. In the Philippine Islands, the young pods are cooked as a vegetable and roasted seeds are used as a substitute for coffee. The young dry seeds are popped like popcorn. It is one the highest quality and most palatable fodder trees of the tropics, often being described as the ‘alfalfa of the tropics’. It was developed as forage in Hawaii. Gum arises from its stems is used as gum and has a potential commercial value. Seeds also yield about 25 percent gum and is highly viscous solutions at low solute concentrations. Red, brown and black dyes are extracted from the pods, leaves and bark of L.leucocephala. It contain tannin and is used as a natural dye in leather and cotton industries.

(Meena Devi, V. N., Ariharan, V. N., & Nagendra Prasad, P. (2013). Nutritive value and potential uses of Leucaena leucocephala as biofuel—A mini review. Research Journal of Pharmaceutical, Biological and Chemical Sciences, 4(1), 515-521.)