Description
Ti Plant is a genus of about 15 species of woody monocotyledonous flowering plants in family Asparagaceae, subfamily Lomandroideae. Cordyline fruticosa is an evergreen shrub or small tree which can be unbranched or freely-branched. It grows from 1 - 5 metres tall. The plant is commonly utilised by local people for a wide range of uses. It is also widely cultivated in the moist tropics and subtropics as an ornamental plant, there are many named varieties
The subfamily has previously been treated as a separate family Laxmanniaceae, or Lomandraceae. Other authors have placed the genus in the Agavaceae (now Agavoideae). Cordyline is native to the western Pacific Ocean region, from New Zealand, eastern Australia, southeastern Asia and Polynesia, with one species found in southeastern South America.
Characteristics:
The Hawaiian Ti plant (pronounced as in tea not tie) is a palmlike evergreen shrub with a strong, usually unbranched trunk that can get up to 10' tall. However, most of us know it as a smaller foliage house plant, before much of a trunk has developed. The leaves are 12-30" long, 4-6" wide and may be glossy green, reddish purple, or marked with various combinations of purple, red, yellow or white. The leaves originate in tufts at the top of the woody stems in mature plants, and more or less along the stems in younger house plants. Mature plants produce yellowish or reddish flowers that are sweetly scented, less than a half inch across, and clustered in conspicuous 12" panicles. The fruits are red berries. Ti sometimes grows in clumps by suckering from the enlarged tuber-like rhizomes. A red ti plant cultivar. Many cultivars have been selected for their beautiful foliage.
Medicinal Uses:
An infusion of the leaves is used as a remedy for swellings, inflammations and for dry fevers. The juice of the leaves is used to treat colds and coughs, stomach-ache, eczema and gastritis. An infusion of three crushed leaves of the purple cultivar is used to treat high blood pressure.
The leaf buds are used to treat lower chest pains. Filariasis is treated with a solution made from the new plant shoots.
Applied externally, the juice of the leaves is used to treat earache and infected eyes. An infusion of the leaves in oil is used to treat wounds. The leaves are crushed with oil and applied to abscesses of the gums. The lower portion of the leaf is macerated in olive oil and used as a cataplasm or tampon for treating wounds.
