Gloria wondered what galactogogue type substance there might be in banana
tree blossoms and peels/petals.

Good question and no specific answers that I can find.  Duke lists as unique
substances in the inflorescence ( flower cluster):
delphinidin, pelargonidin,  peonidin, malvidin, petunidin - purple pigments
found in many other flowers...

Do know banana flower is called hua-plee and I can get frozen in markets in
Minneapolis.  Bingel and Farnsworth's compilation of plant galactogogues
desciribes the inflorescence of the banana tree as being a food ingredient
in some kinds of liang curry, and believed to be helpful in increasing milk
in Thailand.  Same as what your mother told you - thanks for the detail on
"dose" being 2 bowls soup a day. Can you ask her how often hua-plee is still
used in Thailand?

In Hawaii, according to June Gutmanis' account of traditional medicine,
banana flowers were used a couple of ways in perinatal period.  Perineal
tears were treated topically with the juice of the banana flower. And
here's a treatment to make bountiful milk:  4 aerial roots of the screw-pine
(hala) were pounded and mixed with the juice from 4 stalks of sugarcane plus
4 small sweet potatoes, also pounded.  To this was added 8 drops of sap from
the flower of an iho-lena variety of banana.

All these ingredients in this recipe would provide quite a wide variety of
plant sugars, all told; use for wound healing may also indicate some pretty
interesting sugars may be found with closer scrutiny than done so far.

(can see real banana trees in Minnesota in St. Paul in Como park
conservatory but you cannot touch!)

Sincerely but speculatively,
Sheila Humphrey
BSc RN IBCLC
Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota

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