Vernonia amygdalina

Vernonia amygdalina, a member of the daisy family, is a small to medium-sized shrub that grows in tropical Africa. V. amygdalina typically grows to a height of 2-5 m. The leaves are elliptical and up to 20 cm long. Its bark is rough.

V. amygdalina is commonly called bitter leaf in English because of its bitter taste. Other African common names include Congo Bololo (D. R. Congo), ebicha (Oromo), grawa (Amharic), ewuro (Yoruba), etidot (Efik), onugbu (Igbo), ityuna (Tiv), oriwo (Edo), Awɔnwono (Akan), chusar-doki or shuwaka (Hausa), mululuza (Luganda), labwori (Acholi), olusia (Luo), ndoleh (Cameroon), Umubirizi (Kinyarwanda) and olubirizi (Lusoga).

Food
The leaves are a staple vegetable in soups and stews of various cultures throughout equatorial Africa. They are washed to reduce their bitterness, after which they are dried and used to prepare meat dishes. In Nigeria, leaves are also used in place of hops to brew beer. The leaves can also be used to make bitter leaf soup, a delicacy which is one of the most traditional soups in Nigeria. It is native to the Igbos of Eastern Nigeria.

Other
In Nigeria, twigs and sticks from this plant are used as a chewing stick for dental hygiene and the stems are used for soap in Uganda. In Ghana, the young leaves rather than the old, has gained credence for its potent anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory activity; and have been proven using animal models.

In the Northern part of Nigeria, it has been added to horse feed to provide a strengthening or fattening tonic called ‘Chusar Doki’ in Hausa.The leaves have also been used in Ethiopia as hops in preparing tela beer. The leaves are widely used for fevers and are known as a quinine–substitute in Nigeria and some other African countries. The young leaves are used in folk medicine as anthelmintic, antimalarial, laxative/purgative, enema, expectorant, worm expeller and fertility inducer in subfertile women. Many herbalists and naturopathic doctors have recommended the aqueous extracts for their patients as treatment for emesis, nausea, diabetes, loss of appetite-induced abrosia, dysentery and other gastrointestinal tract problems. It has also been claimed to possess diuretic properties. and natriuretic properties. Increasing evidence suggests that the phytochemicals present in the leaves, roots and stem are responsible for the observed anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory properties of the plant. Specifically, the aqueous and ethanolic extracts have been reported to reduce the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines in inflammatory conditions.

Zoopharmacognosy
In the wild, chimpanzees have been observed to ingest the leaves when suffering from parasitic infections.