Photo: SAplants, CC BY-SA 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)
Cancer Bush
Sutherlandia frutescens
Also known as Sutherlandia, Kankerbos, Balloon Pea, Insiswa, Unwele
Key benefits
✦Traditional uses
✦For generations, Khoikhoi and San healers turned to this silvery-leaved shrub as an all-purpose tonic, brewing its leaves into a bitter tea for fevers, coughs, and the aches of a hard season. Cape Dutch settlers adopted the plant too, giving it the Afrikaans name kankerbos, or cancer bush, a term that in old colonial usage referred broadly to internal wasting complaints and stubborn sores rather than cancer as we define it today. Across Zulu, Xhosa, and Sotho traditions alike, it has long been valued as a restorative for those recovering from illness or exhaustion, taken to steady the nerves, settle the stomach, and help the body find its footing again. It remains one of the most widely used traditional tonics in South Africa, still gathered and shared as a bitter, bracing cup of comfort.
How to grow & use it
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“For the long, thin days when the body feels worn down and asks for something bracing and green.”
The plant's papery, inflated seed pods look like tiny hot-air balloons dangling among the leaves, which is why English speakers have also called it the balloon pea, a much cheerier name than the one that stuck.
Cancer bush is traditionally avoided during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and may interact with immunosuppressant medications or antiretroviral therapy. It isn't meant for large doses or long uninterrupted use.