Witnessed by: Western · Unani
Plum (Prunus domestica), of the Rosaceae family. Small deciduous tree with a spreading crown; native range: the Caucasus and Caspian region of western Asia, whence it spread across Europe; anciently cultivated. Globally recognized as aloo bukhara in Hindi, ijjas (إجاص) in Arabic, and European plum, prune, damson (dried fruit) in English. The part used is ripe fruit (fresh or dried as prune / aloo bukhara). A smooth-skinned drupe over yellow-green flesh, sweet with a clean sourness at the skin; dried it turns dark, wrinkled and honeyed, faintly winey.
In this cross-tradition database, we analyze how this substance operates across world medicine systems — tracking its traditional tastes, temperatures, tissue affinities, post-digestive effects, and planetary correspondences across Ayurveda, Unani, and Western herbalism.
PLUM
IDENTITY
Name
- Common
- Plum
- Scientific name
- Prunus domestica L.
- Family
- Rosaceae
Form
- Part used
- ripe fruit (fresh or dried as prune / aloo bukhara)
PROPERTIES
Nature
Taste
how the plant declares itself on the tongue
- Western
- sweet · sour
- Unani
- sweet · sour
Temperature
- Western
- cool
- Unani
- cold & moist (1st–2nd degree)
Affinity
where in the body it travels
Organs / channels
- Western
- bowels · liver · blood
- Unani
- stomach · liver · intestines
PRACTICE
Virtue
Actions
- Western
- laxative, aperient, cooling, mildly nutritive; the prune a gentle bulk-and-osmotic laxative
- Unani
- mulayyin (laxative), musakkin-e-safra (sedates yellow bile), muburrid (refrigerant), musaffi-e-dam (blood-cleansing), muskin-e-atash (quenches thirst)
Cautions
- Contraindications
- cold, weak or windy digestion prone to griping and flatulence; loose bowels
- Toxicity
- essentially a food; excess dried fruit is purgative and gas-forming (kernels, like other Prunus, contain cyanogenic amygdalin and are not eaten)
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