NEEM

Neem is a tree native to India, and it's one of the earliest-recorded and most widely used of all medicinal plants. In Indian villages today Neem trees, AZADIRACHTA INDICA, are still thought of as "the village pharmacy" and are used for everything from bad teeth and bedbugs to ulcers and malaria.

Recent Western studies report that Neem extracts delay blood coagulation and calm erratic heartbeats; oral doses of Neem-leaf extract reduce insulin needs 30%- 50% for nonkeytonic, insulin-fast and insulin- sensitive diabetes; Neem extracts are toxic to the herpes virus and can aid in the rapid healing of cold sores; Neem has antihistamine properties; Neem extracts reduce fertility in male monkeys; Neem extracts have been approved by the US EPA for use on food crops and it protects crops from over 200 of the most costly pests. And there's a lot more. If you're interested in Neem, look it up with your search engine.

Maybe 15 years ago someone planted a lot of Neem trees where I am now. You can see a typical tree, now in the early dry season yellowing and losing its leaves and looking Septembery to a North American, below:

A close-up showing one of Neem's twice-compound leaves and blackening fruits, which are drupes, is below:

If you're in the US Southeast you may think that Neem looks a lot like Chinaberry, Melia azedarach, also originally from southwestern Asia, and which has gone wild there, in places becoming an important invasive species. There is indeed a similarity, for the species are closely related, both belonging to the Mahogany Family, the Meliaceae. Hunters in Mississippi have told me that if you rub Chinaberry leaves on your skin it'll repel mosquitoes, but I've found the leaves only mildly repellent.

By the way, if you're unsure what a "twice compound" leaf is, the one in the above picture is a classic example of one. All the connected green items at the picture's left constitute a single leaf. It's a compound leaf. If you look closely you'll see that first the whole leaf is divided into eleven units branching off the main stem, or rachis. In the picture the lowermost five units are undivided leaflets, but the upper six units are divided yet again into subleaflets -- they're "twice divided," "2-pinnate," or "bipinnate."