Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic forced governments around the world to impose lockdowns. Home gardening has become a popular initiative among affected households, especially in the Philippines.
Doing a Google trend analysis reveals a dramatic increase in interest in the search term “how to plant” at the beginning of the pandemic.
Filipinos who were not interested in home gardening before started growing herbs and leafy greens in their balconies and backyards.
Numerous posts in social media which home gardeners mentioned and shared images of how many plants and vegetables they grew and harvested. Several also described their efforts to transform parts of their homes which they deem idle, vacant, or underutilized into productive spaces of flourishing edible vegetation.
Aside from vegetables, one of the most popular plants during the Covid-19 pandemic is the Mayana plant. There are many traditional plants that have powerful healing potential, one of these is the Mayana plant.
What is a Mayana Plant?
Mayana is an herb that is usually cultivated as an ornament. It has Acer rubrum leaves which are colored mostly purple. Some leaf colors are yellow, green, red, pink, and sometimes blue but the most common one is purple.
Their leaves give mayana its attractive color giving people the idea to display varieties of them in their houses.
| Scientific Name | Coleus blumei Benth |
| Common Name | Mayana |
| English Name | Painted Nettle |
| Filipino Name | Mayana |
Mayana grows fast and healthy in humid places. They don’t like prolonged exposure to sunlight as their leaves dry up. A little bit of sunlight exposure in the morning can make their color more contrasted and bright. And a morning and evening sprinkling of water is enough for them to grow nicely and beautifully.
What are the Benefits of the Mayana Plant?
Mayana is a popular plant for homes for its wide variety that people can collect. Beautiful colors make this plant often used as an ornamental flower. Aside from being a home decoration, Mayana also has a lot of health benefits. Mayana can be used as a medicinal plant due to the essential oils and antioxidants. Mayana leaves including medicinal plants that can handle various kinds of ailments such as ulcers, to serious illnesses such as diabetes and hemorrhoids.
According to Science here are some of the proven benefits of Mayana
- Helps to Treat Hemorrhoids
- Helps Treat Boils/Ulcer
- Helps to Heal and Lowers Fever Heat
- Curing and Relieve Symptoms of Cough
- Good When Menstruation
- Treating Diabetes
- Stomach Pain and Heartburn Drugs
- As the Red Eye Drug
- As cough and cold medicines
- Treating ulcerative lesions
- To clean the blood on the last day of menstruation
- Inflammation Ear Drops Drug
- Drug Whitish
- Overcoming Worms Bracelet
- Enteritis | Treating Colitis
That’s 15 benefits of the Mayana plant for treatment. Now, you can add a collection of ornamental plants that are rich in health benefits. Besides adding beauty to the landscape, numerous health benefits can be obtained with ease.
The benefits of ornamental plants themselves become an attraction for everyone, ornamental plants are very useful to beautify the look of the house, room, or other buildings as the greening decoration and a hobby.
Source:
Philippine Medical Plants (2016) Mayana. From: http://www.stuartxchange.org/Mayana
Dr. Health Benefits (2015) 15 Health Benefits of Mayana Plant. From: https://drhealthbenefits.com/herbal/herbal-plant/health-benefits-of-mayana-plant
