In Search Of Damiana

Primitivo García smiled as he held up the damiana shrub with his right hand, its roots hanging, sprinkling pieces of the earth that had held it moments before. This is not the ideal way to harvest the plant (it should be trimmed, leaving it embedded in the ground to regenerate its branches), but Primitivo doesn’t know. A gregarious man in his forties who speaks with the pace and amiable disposition of a twenty-year-old, he became acquainted with damiana only recently. To locals and tourists alike, he sells it at the plant nursery that he owns and operates on the roadside outside Todos Santos, a small but quickly-developing Mexican town in the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula.

The Pacific crashes on the shore of Todos Santos and recedes in a caress. This is not the powder-white coast of Tulum — as a whole, the sands here appear a caramel brown; upon closer inspection, multi-hued specks of gold and black. Inland spans a mostly monochromatic desert of low shrubs punctuated by cacti, their limbs raised in a sun salutation not unlike the ones adopted every day across town by pupils of the yoga studios that have begun popping up. Due to its proximity to the Sierra La Laguna biosphere, Todos Santos is one of Mexico’s most biodiverse regions, combining virgin beaches, desert landscapes, and lush forests. The town itself is nestled amid an oasis bursting with palm trees

My colleagues and I had driven there four days prior, determined, among other tasks, to find and photograph the damiana plant in its full splendor — that is, mottled with the yellow flowers that characterize it on Google searches. This was proving not to be an easy undertaking. The bloom is evanescent, and appears fleetingly after rainfall, which is sparse in the desert. It was the final day of our trip, and we’d had no luck so far, when we pulled over at the nursery after spotting a hand-painted sign that advertised damiana. Primitivo offered to take us to the hill where he, and others who sell the plant’s dried leaves, forage it. This practice — gathering plants from their natural, or “wild” habitat — is known as wildcrafting. In Baja California, it is the main way damiana is harvested.

Native to Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean, Turnera diffusa, or damiana, has been believed to have stimulant and antidepressant properties for centuries. In the late 17th century, a Spanish missionary named Juan María de Salvatierra documented the Maya peoples’ use of damiana, which they called miziboc, as a remedy for dizziness and fatigue, as well as a powerful aphrodisiac. The latter is a reputation it holds strongly still today. In Northern Mexico, it was used by the Guaycura people as a general invigorant and to treat the nervous system. Similar to the popular medicinal herb ashwagandha, damiana is an adaptogen, capable of lowering stress and believed to treat a slew of health problems, including asthma and other respiratory diseases, depression, digestive conditions, diabetes, menstrual disorders, impotence and prostate problems. Like other medicinal plants and ancestral methods of healing, it is currently experiencing a sort of cultural renaissance, though not without its backlash.

“My belief is people approach complementary medicine in two ways,” said Eric Small, MD. “They either accept it without critical thought simply because it’s alternative, or they reject it without critical thought because it’s alternative.” And though it is wise to cultivate a healthy level of skepticism for grandiloquent claims of all sorts, it is also necessary to be wary of the rampant cynicism that has gripped contemporary Western society. Applied broadly, this mindset has resulted in the destruction of ecosystems, the proliferation of depression and anxiety, and the general isolation that stems in part from feeling disconnected to our past. Many natural remedies, widely maligned as unfounded, are now becoming the subjects of scientifically rigorous studies which are often finding them to be effective.

Once he established the right protocols for cultivating it, he co-founded Flor de Amor, a company which sells various damiana-based products, along with his partner, Noel Cianci. The couple’s relationship to damiana could only be described as reverence — they assure it is not only an invigorant, but also a relaxing herb, able to read what your body needs at different moments of the day.

One morning at sunrise, Noel and Ross gave us a tour of their damiana farm, stopping to pass around a fifistful of soft green leaves for us to smell, or point out a spider devouring a small moth on one of the shrubs. The crops were verdant, aromatic, and budding. Like damiana itself, some unopened flowers here and there were just beginning to reveal to us their full potential. “I’m open to anybody that wants to learn about damiana, and I’m here to learn from them, too,” says Ross. “From their mother’s story, their grandmother’s story, to their experiences today — sharing experiences is how we grow and improve as a community.”

We had almost accepted the idea of leaving Todos Santos without it, but in the end, we did fifind the elusive bloom. Deftly maneuvering the hill in his leather
sandals, Primitivo spotted a spark of yellow, almost entirely obscured by the wilderness. There, in its natural habitat, the tiny flower stood fully unfurled.