Gotu Kola History and Benefits

Gotu Kola vs. kola nut

Gotu Kola. The “Un-Cola”. Well, that’s the first thing that came to my mind when I read that name. If you remember that very famous 7Up commercial, maybe you thought the same thing. And it is also true that this plant has nothing to do with the kola nut, Cola nitida. The Latin name for Gotu Kola is Centella asiatica.

Kola just means “leaf” in a Northern Indian language now mostly spoken in Sri Lanka. Gotu refers to the shape of the leaf—cup-like or cone-shaped. 

In the case of the kola nut, kola just refers to the specific plant that grows the famous kola nut, which is high in caffeine and was used to make the original Coca-Cola. 

To think that a soft drink contained both Coca leaves—the source of cocaine—and the Cola nut with all that caffeine! Bzzzzzzz!

Kola is the West African spelling and Cola comes from the Latin name given to it by the famous botanist, Carl Linnaeus. Kola was the most popular spelling used for both the tree and the nut until Coca-Cola popularized the Cola spelling. Both uses are considered correct. And now you know that Gotu Kola has absolutely nothing to do with that!

Identifying Gotu Kola

This herb is native to Southeast Asian countries such as India, Sri Lanka, China, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Because of its medicinal properties, it is cultivated in countries all over the world. It is naturalized in tropical and subtropical areas like the Southern US, parts of Australia, South Africa, and Madagascar, and is greenhouse grown in other countries like Turkey.

The look of the plant is slightly different depending on its source, but in general it is a creeping grass-like plant, sort of like crab grass, but instead of blades, it shoots up stems that have circular, elliptical or kidney shaped leaves, pretty compact. To me, it looks like little coins, although some varieties don’t have that neat a rim and the edges look kind of scalloped and they look more like a stylized heart that puffs out like an upside down cup instead of the upright cup of the circular leaves.

The palmate veins start in the center for the circular leaves, a bit off center for the elliptical and for the kidney or kind of heart shaped ones they start at the top V or indented part for lack of a better term. These cute little leaves are light green to yellowish green and when they are crushed, they give off a carrot-like smell. They apparently taste good since they are used in many dishes, including raw in salads.

Plant Characteristics

Presently, in the West, the leaves are the only things used. The fruit and seeds were used in ayurvedic medicine as the rest of the plant. The fruit is very bitter, so it is not used in cooking. 

The fruit is very interesting though. It is either round or oval. The surface of the fruit growing on the plant has veins visible through the surface and it looks yellowish-green and very juicy, but as it reaches maturity the surface bursts open and reveals a fruit that kind of looks like a strawberry or pineapple only tiny and it is yellowish brown. If you remember from previous blogs, these fruits are called achenes which are like a little farm of individual seeds all embedded in one fruit. Only in the case of Gotu Kola the seeds don’t stay as part of the fruit; they break off becoming individual parts called mericarps. 

Mer- means part and carp refers to a fruit body. So, it means part of a fruit body. The mericarps get disbursed through the water flows around the plant, although chief reproduction is done through the stolons or nodes that spread along the ground like crab grass. But the mericarps can start off a plant in a whole new area.

The flowers of the Gotu Kola are little umbels. Remember that means an upright cluster, kind of like a bouquet of single flowers bunched into a compound flower. Sometimes there is only one flower though, or as many as five; and although reported as violet flowers, they can also be white, pink, or even crimson. The flowers have 4-6 petals and they grow relatively close to the ground.

Other Names for Gotu Kola

Gotu Kola has many common names: Asiatic pennywort, Indian pennywort, Indian water navelwort, wild violet, and tiger herb. Oddly, it has many Latin names too. Centella asiatica, as mentioned; Centella coriacea (means “leathery”); Hydrocotyle asiatica (Hydrocotyle means “water cup” in Greek); Hydrocotyle lunata (crescent-shaped, probably referring to the side view of the leaf); and Trisanthus cochinchinensis. Which refers to the flowers often in a cluster of three (Tri- meaning three, and anthus- meaning flower). Cochinchinensis refers to the place it was first found. Cochin, a region in China that is now Vietnam. A different botanist named Loureiro first found it there in the 1700’s. This is not aptly named because the flower clusters can be 1-5 flowers in a small umbel.

I ran into a reference that listed a whopping 53 Latin names synonymous with Gotu Kola!! The reason it has so many Latin names is because there were many early attempts to classify it. This shows the historical interest in this plant across different cultures. The latest and final conclusion is Centella asiatica, but in the literature the other names still exist. 

Cultural Context

"Centella" means "100 leaves" related to 100 years, because it was said that if you wanted to live to 100 you should eat these leaves. And "asiatica" obviously means from Asia. People concluded this because elephants live to be 100 years old and they eat a lot of this plant in the wild. Throughout herbal history, people have learned a lot about plants by watching the animal life in the area and then trying the plants themselves.

Another theory is that “Centella” is from the Latin centrum meaning “prickle”, referring to the fruit of the gotu kola plant. But when I looked up centrum, it mostly meant “center” and one definition referred to the point on a compass that you prick into a surface when you are drawing a circle with the compass. To me that somewhat describes the leaves, not the fruit. So who knows? I found many conflicting and confused descriptions of the fruit which I had to piece together. I don’t think centrum or “prickly” is an apt description because the fruit is not even as prickly as a pineapple. 

In India, there is another name complication. Gotu Kola shares the name Brahmi with another similar herb, Bacopa monnieri (Water Hyssop). Both were traditionally used for calming and to improve memory, and the two complement each other well. If you are ever shopping in an Indian market you can tell whether Brahmi is Gotu Kola or Water Hyssop by the leaves. Water Hyssop’s leaves are small, round or elliptical, and fleshy. Gotu Kola has broader leaves with serrated edges. Both of those plants are high in various forms of saponins.

Gotu Kola Benefits and Medicinal Uses

Gotu Kola is an adaptogen that improves overall health. I guess that is why after hashing through so many attempts to classify it in Latin, the one that relates to longevity won out. 

Here is a list of things Gotu Kola was historically used for:

• Wound healing
• Kidney health through increased circulation and antioxidant action
• Strong antioxidant for the whole body
• Calming raging systems, increasing flows, and decreasing congestion
• Restoring smooth, healthy skin
• Protecting the liver
• Calming and strengthening nerves
• Stimulating the immune system
• Protecting the heart
• Keeping carbohydrate metabolism on track
• Helping to keep abnormal cells and aggregation of these cells cleared out
• Rebuilding the inner walls of veins
• Enhanced memory, mood, and clear thinking

Many compounds have been isolated as being biologically active medicinally. The triterpene saponisides are the most concentrated upon. You know from previous blogs that a triterpene has 30 carbons that can be arranged into many different forms. Saponisides are such an arrangement that can manipulate fatty substances because they are able to dissolve in both water and fat.

In the body, they are able to keep nerves and the brain clean and this, along with their ability to quench oxidative stress, makes them supremely useful in gaining and maintaining health.

Before I studied this herb, I used to erroneously call it "Guta Kola", but I will never make that mistake again because now I know that it is the Gotu (Go To) herb for just about everything, since everything is affected by the brain and nervous system. And the fact that all that antioxidant and cleansing ability spills over to the rest of the internal organs to preserve and heal them as well, makes this the Go To herb of all time!