Juba’s Bush—Nerve Wist

Iresine diffusa

Amaranthaceae

---

Looking pretty right now, as it does much of the year, is the pufffy white plant known locally as Juba’s Bush.   You see it here and there, fairly showy.    Look closely, some individuals are more feathery-puffy than others.    The feathery ones are females having seeds covered in white hairs.   The males have tiny white hairless flowers. 

All photos today by John Bradford.

The species is regarded as a minor sources of allergenic pollen, although I’m not sure about wind pollination, given that the flowers are fragrant.   Would be interesting to know what happens pollination-wise.

Female flowers with hairs

OK now, who was Juba, other than a city in Sudan?  Juba I and II were father and son Kings of the ancient North African kingdom of Numidia.   One of the King Jubas named a miraculous medicinal plant “Euphorbia” for his physician Euphorbus.  In somebody’s imagination  Iresine called to mind  Juba’s legendary Euphorbia plant, thus Juba’s Bush.

Male inflorescences

Iresine diffusa itself has quite a medicinal history of its own.   Shift the camera from Numidia to Jamaica.   The discovery of the genus Iresine in a formal botanical sense was in Jamaica in 1756.   Perhaps dating back to indigenous inhabitants,  Jamaica has a long tradition of “root tonics” blended from the roots of several local species.  Some of the tonics are bottled commercially, others more informal. Dr. Sylvia Mitchell at the University of the West Indies studied 38 different tonics.  It turned out that  Iresine diffusa, known locally as “Nerve Wist,” is in most of the tonics, reputed to enhance “male vigor.”   I’d include the label of the main commercial tonic incorporating Nerve Wist, but the brand name and associated imagery are a bit salacious for our nice family blog.