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Scientific name: Bahuinia forficata

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The cow's foot is a tree of the Fabaceae family, distributed mainly in the tropical Amazon areas of South America.

 

It is a tree of 4 - 8 m of height, of the trunk more or less straight, about 45 cm in diameter, bark fissured greyish-brown. With a globose and irregular crown, formed by branches arching downwards, hairy and armed with thorns. It has simple, alternate, annual leaves. firm consistency, light green, 5 – 6 cm long by 3 - 10 cm wide, divided into more than 1/3 of its length into two oblong lobes, resembling the hoof of a cow, that's where its name comes from.

 

Its flowers are white and pinkish, and it is similar to an orchid, they are hermaphrodites 8 - 13 cm in diameter, solitary or arranged in axillary clusters; they bloom almost all summer.

 

Its fruit is a legume or flattened pod, which contains several flattened, oval, shiny and blackish seeds.

 

Applications: Its wood, known as false mahogany, is used from it, although its most widespread use is as a medicinal plant.

 

In this sense, its properties as hypoglycemic and diuretic have been well studied. It is also used as an astringent, healing and antiseptic.

 

Taxonomy: Bauhinia forficata was described by Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link and published in Enumeratio Plantarum Horti Regii Berolinensis Altera.

 

This Amazonian spice, popularly used as a medicinal plant, is reputed to be effective in the treatment of diabetes and to have purgative and diuretic properties. Now, it is beginning to be studied in certain universities in Ecuador and Brazil.

 

Chemical substances with pharmacological action of the plant will be investigated and forms of planting, handling and harvesting will be defined for the diffusion of phytotherapeutic use. Cow leg is used as a kind of vegetable insulin to regulate blood glucose. It was found that the greatest effect of hypoglycemia (39%) was produced by the infusion of cow's foot in rats with diabetes with alloxan. In medicine, the leaves of the cow's foot are popularly used in infusion for the treatment of non-insulin-dependent diabetes.