Today, June 3rd, is National Insect Repellant Awareness Day! Though the discussion is usually for visitors to our sunny island in summer circles around sunscreen, insect repellant is equally important! Living in the United States, we often have a skewed view of the significance on the impact of illness transmitted by insect bites. We either have flailing and wailing about diseases like Chagas that we’re unlikely to ever encounter unless we spend time camping in the Central American nations, or we have a very low key murmuring of concern about common diseases as if the concern is so far from a possibility that insect repellant is a showing of weakness.
Any information here is for educational purposes only and not to encourage use, identification, or harvesting.
But did you know that indigenous people used insect repellant?
American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) is common here on the island. While many people know it for the ability to make jelly from it’s lovely purple berries… did you know it is a potent insect repellant for both mosquitoes and most ticks?
Native people have been saying for a very long time that this plant was full of good medicine. It grows extremely easily. Beautiful year-round. But their knowledge of its use as insect repellant was generally brushed off as mind over matter or correlation not causation.
Until not too long ago..
Studies showed the leaves of the beautyberry were highly effective!
Though studies continue, a large breakthrough was made in 2006. Scientists were able to isolate the compounds in the American Beautyberry. They then tested it on two of the most prevalent ticks known for spreading diseases to humans.
What they found, was that it was comparable if not MORE effective than DEET! This was incredible news! This is a wonderful and was important in helping to show that indigenous knowledge was indeed worth taking seriously (even if many of us trusted in this long before confirmation). Unfortunately, the most common tick on the island, The Lone Star Tick (Amblyomma americanum) doesn’t seem to care much about DEET or Beautyberry as much as other species.
In 2011, another group of scientists worked together to make a synthetic and more shelf-stable version of American Beautyberry. Maybe in the near future, we will be able to use a product from this incredible plant friend!
The uses of plants all around us provide an unending source of learning and discovery!
Have you ever used a plant as an insect repellant? What have you used? Where did you learn about it? We’d love to have you share with us either by emailing us via the contact page or in our Friends of the Museum Facebook Group!
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