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Albizia bark

Dr Thomas Ridley

By Dr Thomas Ridley · Australian Institute of Pharmacognosy

Head of Education and Research

67 min read

Albizia bark - Australian Institute of Pharmacognosy
In this article
  1. 0. Summary card, summary and contents
  2. 1. Nomenclature
  3. 2. Definition
  4. 3. Source and Australian supply
  5. 3.1 Where it must be grown: origin, climate and chemistry
  6. 4. Macroscopy
  7. 5. Microscopy
  8. 6. Chemistry
  9. 7. Named markers and assay limits
  10. 8. TLC fingerprint
  11. 9. HPLC fingerprint
  12. 10. Identity, purity, adulterants and contaminants
  13. 11. Traditional use
  14. 12. Current practice: use, preparations and doses
  15. 13. Clinical evidence
  16. 14. Pharmacology
  17. 15. Safety
  18. 16. Discussion
  19. 17. Conclusions
  20. 18. Research still needed
  21. 19. References
  22. 20. Document control

AIP-HP 016 · Version 1.0 draft · First published 2026 · Last modified 2026 · Version history · Report an error

Australian Herbal Pharmacopoeia (working title), monograph AIP-HP 016
Date: 2026
Status: working document, version 1.0
Prepared by: Dr Thomas Ridley, Head of Education and Research, Australian Institute of Pharmacognosy, Cardwell, Queensland

0. Summary card, summary and contents

0.1 Identity card

Field Entry
Monograph AIP-HP 016, version 1.0 draft. Published 2026; next review due 2029, or sooner if a controlled trial of the bark reports
Title Albizia bark (Albizia lebbeck (L.) Benth.), Albiziae lebbeck cortex
Accepted name Albizia lebbeck (L.) Benth., Fabaceae (Leguminosae), order Fabales. Accepted in WCVP (checked 29/09/2026) and in the Australian Plant Census [1,2]
Plant part Dried stem bark, whole or cut (Albiziae lebbeck cortex)
Principal synonyms Mimosa lebbeck L. (basionym); Acacia lebbeck (L.) Willd.; Albizia latifolia Boivin; Mimosa sirissa Roxb.; Mimosa speciosa Jacq. [1]. Spelling variants, which are not separate names: Albizzia lebbeck (Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India) and Albizia lebbek (Bone and Mills). MediHerb and the TGA Permissible Ingredients Determination use Albizia lebbeck [3,6,12,13]
Common names Albizia, siris, Indian siris, siris tree, lebbeck, woman’s tongue, Broome rain tree; Sanskrit Śirīṣa; Hindi Siris; Tamil Vakai [3,4,16]
Status in pharmacopoeias Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India: yes, Part I, Vol. III, monograph 90, Śirīṣa (stem bark) [3]. Ph. Eur.: no monograph (8th Edition searched) [5]. BP, USP–NF, WHO, EMA/HMPC, BHP: no monograph traced
Australian status Permissible Ingredients Determination item 436, ALBIZIA LEBBECK, purposes A and H, no specific requirements [6]. Not in the Poisons Standard [7]. APC: native and naturalised in WA, native in NT, naturalised in Qld [2]. Not prohibited or restricted matter under Queensland biosecurity law [8]. Not CITES-listed [9]
Named markers None set by any pharmacopoeia. Identity by TLC zones at Rf 0.07, 0.21 and 0.63 in the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India system [3]. No assay marker or limit is proposed in this version (section 7)
Evidence snapshot Asthma, bark decoction alone: Tier C, 1 single-arm study, 50 patients analysed, very low certainty [10]. Asthma, 11-herb confection made with the bark: Tier C, 1 two-arm study with no placebo, 52 analysed; formulation result, not carried over to the bark [11]. Allergic rhinitis, urticaria, atopic dermatitis: Tier T, practice and Ayurvedic use, no trial of the bark [3,12,13]; trials of a seven-herb product that contains it (Aller-7) have been identified but not yet read or graded (section 13.1). Mast-cell stabilising action: Tier P [13,14,31]
Suggested citation Australian Institute of Pharmacognosy. Albizia bark (Albizia lebbeck (L.) Benth.), Albiziae lebbeck cortex. Australian Herbal Pharmacopoeia (working title), AIP-HP 016, version 1.0. Cardwell, QLD: AIP; 2026. DOI to be assigned
Provenance Original AIP data: none. Every analytical figure, limit, method and trial result in this monograph comes from the cited sources. One AIP field photograph (iNaturalist observation 334799306, Burdell QLD, 15/01/2026) illustrates foliage in section 3; its identification is provisional and it is not a voucher [15]
Compiler and review Compiled by Dr Thomas Ridley (Education and Research). Technical review: Dr Fiona MacAllister (Botanical, sections 1-5, 10), reviewed in 2026; Dr Hana Suzuki (QA, sections 6-10), reviewed in 2026; Dr Eleanor Whitcombe (Medicine, sections 12, 13, 15), reviewed in 2026; evidence and citation audit of all references, figure sources and sections 11, 13, 14, 16 to 19 by Dr Thomas Ridley (Education and Research), reviewed in 2026; figure placement, captions, credit lines and page layout (Figures 1 to 18) by Jesse Kirby (Community Outreach), reviewed in 2026. Published: not yet. Last modified: 2026. Version 1.0 draft
Canonical URL /pharmacopoeia/albizia-lebbeck/ (on publication)
Figure 1. Albizia lebbeck in Marchant Park, Aspley, Brisbane, Queensland, photographed 29/11/2011: a broad, spreading, p
Figure 1. Albizia lebbeck in Marchant Park, Aspley, Brisbane, Queensland, photographed 29/11/2011: a broad, spreading, planted tree with a short trunk and a dense rounded crown of bipinnate foliage. Photograph John Robert McPherson, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

0.2 Summary

Albizia bark is the dried stem bark of Albizia lebbeck, a deciduous legume tree native to the Indian subcontinent and Myanmar and now planted and naturalised throughout the tropics, including northern Australia, where the Australian Plant Census treats the Kimberley and Top End populations as native and the Queensland ones as naturalised [1,2]. It is an official drug of the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India (Śirīṣa), which is the only pharmacopoeial standard for it: a thick, fissured, astringent bark with stone cells, crystal fibres and prismatic calcium oxalate, identified by a simple TLC system and held to ash and extractive limits [3]. No pharmacopoeia sets an assay. The bark contains tannins and flavan-3-ols and oleanane triterpenoid saponins; which of them, if any, carries the effect claimed for it is not known [3,14,16].

Australian practitioners use it for allergic conditions: hay fever, urticaria, eczema and asthma, usually alongside Baical skullcap [12,13]. That use rests on Ayurvedic tradition and on animal and in vitro work showing mast-cell stabilisation [13,14]. The human evidence is two uncontrolled or unblinded Indian studies in asthma, one of the bark decoction alone and one of a multi-herb confection, both at very low certainty [10,11]. At least two further registered trials of the confection in asthma are recorded as completed but have no report we could trace [32]. A 2026 "systematic review" that reports further trials fails our source check: its trial citations do not exist [17]. Rat studies show antispermatogenic effects of bark extracts and bark saponins, so the main safety question is male fertility, for which there are no human data [14,31].

0.3 Contents and extent

Section Pages (approx.)
0 Summary card, summary, contents 4
1 Nomenclature 0.5
2 Definition 0.5
3 Source and Australian supply, 3.1 origin and chemistry 3
4 Macroscopy 2
5 Microscopy 2
6 Chemistry 2
7 Named markers and assay limits 0.5
8 TLC fingerprint 1
9 HPLC fingerprint 1
10 Identity, purity, adulterants, contaminants 2
11 Traditional use 0.5
12 Current practice, preparations and doses 1.5
13 Clinical evidence 4
14 Pharmacology 1
15 Safety 2
16–18 Discussion, conclusions, research needed 3
19 References 1
20 Document control 1.5

Totals (approx.): 33 pages; 18 figures, of which 16 are images (9 photographs, botanical plates and a herbarium sheet; 7 AIP drawings, schematics and charts) and 2 are captioned placeholders; 0 photomicrographs and 0 chromatograms (both AIP bench data pending); 19 tables; 2 human studies graded; 2 sources excluded on the integrity screen; 33 references.

0.4 Contributors and access

Compiled by Dr Thomas Ridley, Head of Education and Research. Section reviews by Botanical (Dr Fiona MacAllister), QA (Dr Hana Suzuki) and Medicine (Dr Eleanor Whitcombe) are complete, the evidence and citation audit by Education and Research is done, and the layout review by Community Outreach (Jesse Kirby) is done; the Librarian and Legal reviews are pending. All are recorded in section 20. The free sample is the first five printed pages; the full text is available to Scholar members and above.

27 more pages follow · 13,649 words, 15 figures, 20 tables

Still to come in this monograph

  1. 1. Nomenclature
  2. 2. Definition
  3. 3. Source and Australian supply
  4. 3.1 Where it must be grown: origin, climate and chemistry
  5. 4. Macroscopy
  6. 5. Microscopy
  7. 6. Chemistry
  8. 7. Named markers and assay limits
  9. 8. TLC fingerprint
  10. 9. HPLC fingerprint
  11. 10. Identity, purity, adulterants and contaminants
  12. 11. Traditional use
  13. 12. Current practice: use, preparations and doses
  14. 13. Clinical evidence
  15. 14. Pharmacology
  16. 15. Safety
  17. 16. Discussion
  18. 17. Conclusions
  19. 18. Research still needed
  20. 19. References
  21. 20. Document control

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