Psoralea corylifolia

Psoralea corylifolia (Babchi) is a plant used in the Ayurveda and Chinese systems of traditional medicine. The seeds of this plant contain a variety of coumarins, including psoralen. Psoralea is from the Greek 'psoraleos' meaning 'scabby' and refers to the appearance given to the plants by the small glands which cover them; corylifolia comes form the similarity of the leaves to those of Corylus, a genus of trees in the northern regions of the world and common in Sweden, the home of Linnaeus, the author of the species. Psoralea corylifolia grows 50–90 cm tall and is an annual plant. It has pale-purple flowers in short, condensed, axillary spikes. Its corolla is pale purple. Flowers one-seeded fruits. The most distinctive feature is the occurrence of minute brown glands which are immersed in surface tissue on all parts of the plant, giving it a distinctive and pleasant fragrance. P. corylifolia is native to India and Sri Lanka, and was occasionally cultivated in Arabia for its supposed medicinal properties. P. corylifolia extract contains numerous phytochemicals, including flavonoids (neobavaisoflavone, isobavachalcone, bavachalcone, bavachinin, bavachin, corylin, corylifol, corylifolin and 6-prenylnaringenin), coumarins (psoralidin, psoralen, isopsoralen and angelicin), meroterpenes (bakuchiol, and 3-hydroxybakuchiol). P. corylifolia L., or Bu Gu Zhi in traditional Chinese medicine, is an herb used as a supposed therapy for several disorders, although there is only limited clinical evidence for such effects, such as treatment of lichen-induced dermatitis by psoralen extract combined with sunlight exposure.