Mimosa or Makahiya

Description:

Makahiya is a diffusely spreading, half-woody herb, with branched stems up to 1 meter long, sparingly prickly with numerous deflexed, bristly hairs. The leaves are very sensitive, both pinnae and leaflets, folding when touched. Pinnae are usually 4, digitately arranged at the end of each petiole, and 4 to 9 centimeters long. The leaflets are narrowly oblong, inequilateral, 1 to 1.5 centimeters long, sessile, sparingly bristly, with pointed tips. Heads are long-peduncled, solitary or 2 to 3 in each axil, about 1 centimeter in diameter. Pods are flat, slightly recurved, 1 to 2 centimeters long, with 3 to 5 one-sided joints that fall away on maturity. Florets are red in the upper part with pink to lavender filaments.

Habitat:

Mimosa or makahiya in Filipino is a common weed widely distributed in the Philippines in open, moist, waste places, open grasslands and open thickets, at low and medium altitudes in settled areas. This pantropic weed is introduced from tropical America.

Notes:

Seed contains a toxic alkaloid, mimosine, a non-protein alpha-amino acid, known to cause hair loss and depressed growth in mammals (an unlikely event in humans as this will require unusually large doses). Its roots yield flavonoids, phytosterol, alkaloids, amino acids, tannins, glycoside, fatty acids. The Leaf extract have yielded an adrenaline-like substance. Its seeds contain a mucilage composed of d-xylose and d-glucoronic acid, yielding 17% greenish yellow fatty oil. Mimosa plant contains (1) tubulin with an ability to bind colchicene with its sulfhydryl groups. (2) crocetin dimethyl ester.