Traditional Plant

ALLIUM CEPA L.

Local name: Piaj

English name: Onion

Family: Liliaceae

 Habitat: It is cultivated and used all over the world. It is used as a vegetable around the world and widely cultivated in rural parts of Bangladesh and India.

 Plant Description:  The leaves are fleshy, hollow and cylindrical and are blueish-green in color. They are grown alternately in a flattened, fan-shaped swathe. Flowers are small. Seeds are glossy black and triangular.

Chemical constituents:  

The plant contains quercetin, fructose, quercetin-3-glucoside, isorhamnetin-4-glucoside, xylose, galactose, glucose, mannose, flavenols, allylsulfides, organosulfur compounds, flavonoids, S-alk(en)yl cysteine sulfoxides, selenium, cycloalliin, thiosulfinates, and sulfur and seleno compounds. Scales contain protocatechuic acid and catechol (Ghani, 2003).

Plant parts used: Bulb, Leaf, Flowers.

Medicinal and traditional uses:

 Whole plant is used as a vegetable all over the world. Bulb is useful for cold, cough, asthma, catarrh, colic, insect bites and rheumatism. Raw bulb is taken for improving eyesight, useful for gastronomic purposes, amenorrhea, menstrual and uterine pains. It acts as an aphrodisiac for both men and women.The plant is used widely to regulate blood pressure, inflammatory purposes, diabetes, urinary problems, fever, dysentery, catarrh, chronic bronchitis, scurvy, body heat, and epilepsy.