Hagenia

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A tree native to highland regions of East Africa, valued for its bark and root which have been used traditionally as a vermifuge and in folk medicine
2. An African tree species found in mountainous areas, whose parts contain compounds historically employed to treat parasitic infections and various ailments
3. A highland African tree whose wood and roots possess medicinal qualities that have been utilized in traditional remedies for intestinal parasites and other conditions

Etymology: Hagenia is the genus of a single tree species, Hagenia abyssinica, native to the highlands of East Africa. It was named in honour of Johann Hagen, an eighteenth-century Swedish-born botanist and pharmacist who worked in Ethiopia and Sudan. Hagen's name, rather than any ancient or local term, is the root of the word, so the mountain tree was christened after a European collector rather than by the people who had long known its uses. The tree's flowers were used in East Africa, especially in Ethiopia, as a traditional treatment for intestinal parasites, and that medicinal reputation gave the species a practical place in regional healing long before European botanists formally named it. The genus name was established in the late eighteenth century, when Carl Peter Thunberg's contemporaries and successors catalogued African flora, and the scientific coinage has remained in use since.