101 YUCATAN TREES INDEX

GIANT MEXICAN SUNFLOWER - Árnica

Maybe a sunflower shouldn't be considered a tree, but this one grows so tall and is so frequently planted in Mayan villages that here we'll call it a tree just so we can have the pleasure of featuring it. Look:

GIANT MEXICAN SUNFLOWER

That one is at least 15 feet tall (4.5m). Its lanky stems stand next to a typical village cinderblock house. Below you can see its blossom and leaves:

GIANT MEXICAN SUNFLOWER, blossom

This is Tithonia diversifolia, native to Mexico, including the Yucatan, and Central America, but planted throughout the world's tropics. As such, it's known by many English names, including Mexican Sunflower, Tree Marigold, and Mexican Tournesol.

Giant Mexican Sunflower produces so much biomass that African farmers use it as an organic fertilizer. Elsewhere it's considered to have important medicinal properties. In China it's used for skin diseases, night sweats, as a diuretic, for hepatitis, jaundice and cystitis. In Taiwan tea made from it is supposed to improve liver function. This native Mexican plant is so well established in Thailand that it's the provincial flower of Mae Hong Son Province, and in Vietnam it's the unofficial symbol of La Lat city.

I asked my Maya shaman friend José what he thought about Giant Mexican Sunflower, and he said:

"Because it grows so fast and becomes so big beneath the sun, in the wind and rain, it soaks up these strong influences. Therefore, when you work outside too much, with the body absorbing so much energy from so many sources that you ache and feel bad, you can soak seven leaves from this plant, with some Rue (Ruta graveolens), and wash yourself with that water, letting it drain over your head. It'll absorb those excess energies inside you, bring your energies back into balance, and let you feel good again... "

101 YUCATAN TREES INDEX