Medicinal Plant

AERUA LANATA (Linn.) Juss.
Achyranthes lanata Linn.
Illecebrum lanatum Linn.
Celosia lanata Blanco
Aerua branchiat Walp

Local names: Apugapugan (Tag.); karlatan (Ilk.); pamaynap (Tag.); tabaahas (Tag.).

Taba-ahas is commonly found in La Union to Batangas Provinces in Luzon; and in Mindoro; Marinduque; and Panay, in open dry waste places, at low and medium altitudes, and in regions subject to a prolonged dry season. It was probably introduced and occurs also in India to tropical Africa and Malaya (Sumatra, Java).

This plant is an ascending or prostrate, densely hairy herb, the stems of which are 0.2 to 0.8 meter in length. The leaves are alternate, elliptical to orbicular or obovate, 1 to 3.5 centimeters long. The flowers are numerous, borne on many white axillary spikes, 1 centimeter or less in length, which are solitary or else crowded in the axils of the leaves.

According to Guerrero a decoction of this plant is a very efficacious diuretic, and is said to be useful in catarrh of the bladder and in gonorrhoea. In India Kirtikar and Basu report that the roots are used in the treatment of headache, and are regarded as demulcent by the natives of the Malabar Coast. Macmillan says that they are much employed in coughs and as a vermifuge for children. Dymock, Warden, and Hooper record that the plant is a useful diuretic in India, and is considered to be of great value in lithiasis. Wehmer records that the plant is used as anthelmintic

NICOTIANA TABACUM Linn.

Local names: Tabaco (Sp.); tabako (Tag.); tbaku (Sul.); tobacco (Engl.).

Tabako is cultivated throughout the Philippines, and in some provinces it is the major commercial crop. A native of tropical America, it is now planted in all warm countries. It is a coarse, erect, viscidly-hairy, annual herb 0.7 to 1.5 meters in height. The leaves are large, elliptic-ovate to oblong or obovate, 10 to 30 centimeters long or longer, narrowed at the base, and sessile or short-stalked. The inflorescences are terminal. The calyx is green, ovoid or tubular, an 1 to 1.5 centimeters long, with five triangular-lanceolate teeth. The corolla is white and pink, linear, funnel-shaped, and about 5 centimeters long, with very numerous, minute seeds.

Wehmer records that the leaves contain a toxic alkaloid, nicotine (C10H14N2) 0.6 to 9 per cent, and three other alkaloids: nicoteine (C10H12N2), nicotelline (C10H8N2), and nicotinine and (C10H14N2). Besides these, betaine, iamylamine, pyrrolidine, and n-methyl pyrroline, etc., resin, albumen, gum, extractive matter, and ash containing a large amount of salts, such as sulphates, nitrates, chlorides, phosphates, malates and citrates of potassium, ammonium, calcium, etc., have been isolated.

The leaves are official in the Austrian (1-5); Belgian (1.2); British (1-3); Danish (1-5); French (1-4); Finnish (1-3,5); German (1-4); Greek (1-3); Mexican (1-4); Norwegian (1-2); Portuguese (1-3); Rumanian (1-3); Russian (3,4); Serbjan (1); Spanish (2-5); Swedish (1-7); Swiss (2,3); United States (1-8); Venezuelan
(1,2); and Indian Pharmacopoeias. The seeds are official in the Spanish (2-5) Pharmacopoeias. Guerrero reports that in the Philippines the fresh leaves are used in poultices as a sedative and maturative. A decoction of the dried leaves is used in enemas for expelling certain intestinal worms. According to Watt and Breyer-Brandwijk the dried leaves of ordinary tobacco are used as styptics.

According to Nadkarni the juice of the leaves is sedative and antispasmodic and a powerful insecticide. The dried leaves are powerfully sedative (lowering arterial tension), nauseating, emetic, and sometimes
purgative. Nicotine is highly toxic. It affects both the central and peripheral nerves and increases the activity of the secreting glands. It causes at first a rise and then a fall in blood pressure and induces contraction of the stomach wall, resulting in nausea and vomiting. The respiration is at first rapid and shallow, then somewhat deeper, but eventually becomes weaker, death resulting finally from paralysis of respiration. Nicoteine appears to be somewhat more poisonous than nicotine. Tobacco used in moderation causes in those accustomed to its use, a gentle exhilaration or a state of quietude and repose. Its excessive use
produces dyspepsia, general anemia, amblyopia from neuritis, and cardiac distress. Nadkarni quotes Professor Hull, who, after an exhaustive investigation of the physiological and psychological effects of smoking, has recently declared that smoking “markedly increases the pulse rate and markedly increases the tremor of the hand, thus confirming and extending the results of earlier observers.”

Nadkarni reports that tobacco-smoking is resorted to with excellent effect in many cases of coughs, whooping cough, obstinate hiccups, spasmodic laryngitis, asthma, nervous irritability, and sleeplessness. Tobacco stuff is useful in nasal polypi, nasal catarrh, headache, chronic giddiness, and fainting. Tobacco leaves are heated and applied to the abdomen in colic and gripes. Their ashes, mixed with oil, are a useful application to bleeding sores. The Pharmacopoeia of India records that as a local application, the leaves have been used for relieving pain and irritation in rheumatic swelling, for syphilitic nodes, and for skin diseases.

RHAPHIDOPHORA MERRILLII Engl.
Pothos pinnata Blanco
Epipremmum merrillii Engl. & Krause

Local names: Amiling (Is.); amlong (Bik., Bis.); amolong (Ilk.); amuling(Is.); bagak (S. L. Bis.); bakag (Bik.); balikupkup (Bis.); balision (Is.); bisako(Bis.); daila (Bis.); dibatib (Bis.); dukup (Bon.); garban (Bis.); garusiba (Ibn.); gatgati (Bon.); gayaman (Sbl..); horoa (Bis.); kigau (Bon.); kilat (Sbl.); malapakpak-balauai (Tag.); mamisi (Ig.); maragayaman (Sbl.); tabatib (Tag.); takoling (C. Bis.); takotin (Bis.); tampinbanal (Tag.).

Tabatib grows in thickets and forests at low medium altitudes in Bontoc, Benguet, La Union, Nueva Vizcaya, Zambales, Bataan, Rizal, Laguna, Tayabas, and Sorsogon Provinces in Luzon; Polillo; Palawan; Leyte; Negros; and Mindanao.

This plant is a stout vine climbing on tree-trunks, reaching heights of 5 to 6 meters. The leaves are oblong-ovate in outline up to 60 centimeters long, pinnately cleft nearly or quite to the midrib into 7 to 12 pairs of lanceolate, acuminate, falcate, 1-nerved lobes, 12 to 20 centimeters long, 2 to 5 centimeters wide. There are several spathes, terminal, white or greenish, in flower 15 centimeters long-------------------------------------, cylindric, nearly or quote as long as the spathe 2 to 215 centimeters thick as an ornamental in Manila.

Tabitib is often cultivated as an ornamental in Manila. According Guerrero the sap is employed for the cure of snakebites. The spadix of this plant valued among the Filipino as an emmenagogue, perhaps on account of its form.

XYLOCARPUS GRANATUM Koenig
Carapa obovata Blume
Xylocarpus obovatus Juss

Local names: Bigi (Tagk.); kolimbanig (Ilk.); lubanayong (Ibn.); nigi (Tagb.); nige (Tag., Bik., Tagb.); migi (Pamp.); piadak (Tagb.); piagau (Tag., P. Bis., Sul.); pulit (Yak.); tabigi (Tag., Bik., Tagb., P. Bis., S. L. Bis., C. Bis., Lan., Sul., Mag.); tibigi (Tag., Bik.); tambo-tambo (Sub., Mag., Sul.); tambu-tambu(Mag.).

Tabigi is found throughout the Philippines in mangrove swamps, bordering tidal streams. It also occurs in India and Ceylon though Malaya to New Caledonia.

This is a small tree growing from 3 to 12 meters in height. The leaves are abruptly pinnate, with pairs of leaflets which are elliptical or obovate, 8 to 18.5 centimeters long, 4 to 8 centimeters wide, with pointed base, and obtuse or rounded tip. The flowers are 4-parted, small and white, and borne on short terminal or axillary (upper) panicles. The fruit is spherical, 9 to 12 centimeters in diameter, and contains 6 to 12 seeds. The pericarp is hard and fibrous and splits into 4 valves. The seeds are angled, with a sponge integument.

In the Philippines, according to Guerrero, the bark is astringent and the fruits and seeds powdered or in decoction, are employed as an antidiarrhetic. Drury reports that the bark as well as other parts of the tree is extremely bitter and astringent, and is much used in Malaya in cholera, colic diarrhea, and other abdominal affections.

TRICHOSANTHES CUCUMERINA Linn.
Trichosanthes amara Blanco
Trichosanthes locuniana Naves

Local names: Melon-daga (Tag.); melon-melonan (Tag.); parparia (Ilk.); tabubok (Tag.); tabugok (Tag.); karkarabasa-ti-aso (Ilk.).

Tabubok is found only in Ilocos Sur, Benguet, La Union, Pangasinan, Bataan, Rizal, and Laguna Provinces in Luzon, in thickets at low and medium altitudes, ascending to 1,200 meters. It is also reported from India through Malaya to tropical Australia.

This is a climbing, herbaceous vine 5 to 6 meters high or less. The stems are green, 4-angled, somewhat hairy, and faintly disagreeable in odor. The roots are somewhat tuberous and whitish. The leaves are somewhat hairy on both surfaces, rounded in outline, 7 to 14 centimeters long and broad, and 3 or 5-lobed, the lobes being broad, rounded or obtuse, and the sinuses broad or narrow and rounded; the base is broadly heart-shaped. The staminate inflorescences are long-peduncled and axillary, with six to fifteen flowers. The calyx-tube is dilated above, about 1 centimeter long, green, and hairy. The petals are white, nearly free, fimbriate, oblong, and about 1.3 centimeters long. The pistillate flowers occur singly in the axils of the leaves. The fruit is ellipsoid, 3 to 4.5 centimeters long, 2.5 to 3 centimeters in diameter, green and mottled with longitudinal gray stripes when young, and orange-red when mature. The seeds are half ellipsoid, somewhat compressed, undulate, hard, rugose, nearly 1 centimeter long, and imbedded in a soft foetid, bitter, red pulp.

According to Nadkarni the expressed juice of the root is drunk doses of 2 ounces as a purgative. But it is a strong gastro-intestinal irritant. Waddell considers the bulbous part of the root as a hydragogue cathartic. Macmillan states that the roots are used for expelling intestinal worms.

Nadkarni reports that in the Konkan the leaf-juice is rubbed over the liver in liver congestion, or over the whole body in remittent fevers. An infusion of tender shoots and dried capsules is aperient, and the expressed juice of the leaves is emetic. Macmillan says that the leaves and stems are used for bilious
disorders and skin diseases and as an emmenagogue.

Nadkarni says that the unripe fruit is very bitter, and that the dried capsules are given in infusion or in decoction with sugar to assist digestion. Crevost and Petelot consider the fruit a very violent purgative and an efficient emetic.

Kirtikar and Basu state that the seeds are anthelmintic and antiperiodic.

ERIGERON CRIPUS Pourr.

Local names: Asipukpuk (Pang.); atipukpuk (Ilk.); balagun (Bag.); batbatung (Bon.); lagia (Ilk.); tagabili (Bik.); takiadauan (Bon.); insok (Ilk.); putputak (Ig.).

Tagabili is often abundant in open, waste places, old clearings, etc., from sea level to an altitude of 2,000 meters, throughout the Philippines. It also occurs in all warm countries.

This is a stout, or sometimes slender, erect, more or less hairy, branched annual 0.5 to 2 meters in height. The leaves are lanceolate to oblanceolate, 6 to 15 centimeters long, 1 to 4 centimeters wide, and coarsely toothed or sublobed in the margins. The panicles are terminal and ample, bearing numerous, peduncled, narrowly ovoid, flowering heads 6 to 7 millimeters long. The bracts are green. There are many greenish-white flowers in each head.

In the Philippines a cataplasm of the fresh plant is applied on wounds, contusions, and dislocations. Burkill quotes Ridley, who says that the leaves are used for rheumatism or lumbago, and to prevent too rapid conception, but he does not say how they are administered. Burkill and Haniff records that decoction of the roots may be taken after childbirth.

RHINACANTHUS NASUTA (Linn.) Kurz
Justicia nasuta Linn.
Rhinacanthus communis Nee

Local names: Pajarito (Sp.); ibon-ibonan (Tag.); tagak-tagak (Tag.).

Tagak-tagak is found in Rizal, Cavite, and Laguna Provinces in Luzon, in thickets, hedges, and waste places, in and about towns; it was certainly introduced, but is now often common. It also occurs in India to Malaya, probably being a native of India.

This useful plant is a slender, erect, branched, somewhat hairy shrub 1 to 2 meters in height. The leaves are oblong, 4 to 10 centimeters in length, and narrowed and pointed at both ends. The inflorescence is a spreading, leafy, hairy panicle with the flowers usually in clusters. The calyx is green, hairy, and about 5 millimeters long. The corolla-tube is greenish, slender, cylindric, and about 2 centimeters long. The corolla
has two spreading lobes (lips); the upper lip is white, erect, oblong or lanceolate, 2-toothed at the apex, and about 3 millimeters in both length and width; and the lower lip is broadly obovate, 11 to 13 millimeters in both measurements, 3-lobed, and white, with a few, minute, brownish dots near the base. The fruit (capsule) is club-shaped and contains 4 seeds.

Wehmer records that the roots contain an active principle, rhinacanthin. The plant is rich in potassium salts. Kirtikar and Basu quote Dr. Liborious [Pharm. Zeot. Russl. 20 (1881) 98], who isolated a quininnelike body, rhinacanthin (1.87 per cent), from the roots which resembles chrysophanic and frangulic acids in its antiseptic and antiparasitic properties.

In the Philippines, according to Guerrero, the sap of the root and leaves, or a decoction of them, is efficient in certain obstinate forms of dermatosis, especially dhobie’s itch (buni sa singit).

Burkill quotes Kerr [Some Siamese Medical Plants (1930) 2], who says that in Siam the roots and leaves have a considerable reputation for the treatment of certain forms of ringworm, a tincture in alcohol, or a preparation in vinegar being used. Burkill and Haniff report that the Malays mix the juice of the roots and leaves with benzoin and sulphur, and apply it to ringworm. Heyne says that in the Dutch Indies the leaves may be applied for prickly heat, scurf, etc., and that in the Moluccas, young shoots, crushed in vinegar, are applied for a skin complaint called “cascado.”

Kirtikar and Basu report that in India the fresh root and leaves, bruised and mixed with lime juice, are a useful remedy for ringworm and other skin affections. The seeds also are efficacious in ringworm. The root-bark is a remedy for dhobie’s itch. In Sind it is said to possess extraordinary aphrodisiacal powers, the roots boiled in milk being much employed by Hindu practitioners. The roots are believed n some parts of India to be an antidote to the bites of poisonous snakes.

KOLOWRATIA ELEGANS Presl.
Renealmia gracilis Blanco
Renealmia exaltata Blanco
Hellenia gracilis Hassk.
Alpinia gracilis Rolfe.
Alpinia elegans K. Schum.

Local names: Bagombon (Tag.); katkatan (Bis.); katotang (Bis.); salbak (Tag.); tagbak (Tag.); tugbak (Tag.).

This plant is found in thickets along streams, at low and medium altitudes in Apayao, Amburayan, Lepanto, Nueva Vizcaya, Pampanga, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Bataan, Rizal, Laguna, Quezon and Sorsogon Provinces in Luzon; in Polillo; in Mindoro; and Leyte. This is an endemic species.

Tagbak is a stout, herbaceous plant, attaining a height of 2 to 4 meters, with stout rootstocks. The stems are swollen at the base, and leafy throughout. The leaves are leathery, spreading or reflexed, oblong-ovate lanceolate, 25 to 60 centimeters long, 5 to 20 centimeters wide, with pointed tip. The petioles are stout and short. The inflorescence is about 30 centimeters long, and the base of the peduncle has oblong-lanceolate, chartaceous, 8- to 12-centimeters long bracts. The braches number about 8, are scattered, spreading, stout, about 5 centimeters long, and are covered with persistent bracts, each branch bearing
several to many flowers, but only one opening at a time. The calyx is about 4 centimeters long. The corolla is pale straw-colored, about 7 centimeters long, with the tube cylindric, and the upper lobe about 4 centimeters long, concave, and erect, white the other two are as long but are reflexed and oblong-ovate.
The lip is about as long as the corolla-lobes, and spreading. The capsule is ellipsoid, woody, and 3 to 4 centimeters long, split into 3 valves, and are crowned by the persistent calyx.

A decoction of the rhizomes is given in hǽmmoptysis. According to Guerrero the leaves, after having been pounded and mixed with a little salt, are rubbed on the affected parts of a paralytic patient. Sulit report that the juice expressed from macerating the young stems is given to persons having urticaria

LANGUAS HAENKEI (Presl.) Merr.
Alpinia haenkei Presl.
Alpinia malaccensis Presl.
Alpinia philippinensis Ridl

Local names: Bagumbung (Tag.); barapat (Ig.); birao-birao (Sul.); punan(C. Bis.); sakiapag (Neg.); simionan (Buk.); tagbak-babae (Tag.); tagbak-lalaki(Tag.); tagusahis (P. Bis.); talbak (Tag.); tamo-tamo (Sbl.); tukang-maya (Tag.); kalaueg (Ig.).

Tagbak-babae is commonly found in primary forests at low and medium altitudes throughout the Philippines in most or all islands and provinces. It also occurs in Borneo.

The plant is about 2 meters tall. The leaves are oblong, 30 to 60 centimeters long, 10 to 13 centimeters wide, smooth on both surfaces except on the edges and at the base, which places are hairy. The bracts are large spathaceous, and about 2 centimeters long. The calyx is spathaceous, urnshaped, cleft on one side, irregularly toothed, and as long as the corolla tube, 10 to 13 millimeters. The corolla tube is broad, with the lobes white, silky, broad, oblong, about 2 centimeters in length, and 7 millimeters wide. The lip is about 3 centimeters long, broad, and yellow with purple spots.

The fruit in decoction or the crushed seeds are administered in cases of gastralgia with tympanitis. According to Guerrero a decoction is used as puerperal bath and for fevers.

PSYCHOTRIA MINDORENSIS Elm.

Local names: Tagolinan (Bik.).

Tagolinan is found only in the Philippines, in primary forests at low and medium altitudes in Quezon, Camarines, and Sorsogon Provinces in Luzon; and in Mindoro, Leyte, Panay, Negros, and Mindanao.

This plant is climbing shrub growing upon medium-sized trees. The stems are about 1 centimeter thick, and the branches are smooth, forming tangled masses, with the free ends more or less hanging. The leaves are ovate or subelliptic, 6 to 10 centimeters long, and 1.5 to 5 centimeters wide, with the apex obtuse or pointed and the base obtuse or rounded. The flowers are small and yellow and occur in terminal inflourescences. The calyx is cut off at the end, and is 2 millimeters deep, as wide across, apiculate at the rim, and very smooth. The corolla is 5 millimeters long, tubular, and very smooth except for the wooly throat, and divided to the middle into 5 oblong and obtusely pointed, rather thick lobes. The fruit is ellipsoid, somewhat fleshy dark colored, ridged, and 6 to 7 millimeters long.

According to Guerrero this plant is to be a cure for certain eye troubles.

ARDISIA SQUAMULOSA Presl
Willughbeia drupacca Blanco
? Willughbeia multiloculaaris Blanco
Ardisia boissiere A. DC.
Ardisia obovata F.-Vill.
Ardisia drupacea Merr.
Ardisia littoralis Merr.
Ardisia humilis F.-Vill.
Ardisia negroensis Mez

Local names: Apiot (Mbo.); babagion (C. Bis.); butau (Bik.); dandulit (Sul.); kanai (Tagb.); katagpo (Tag.); katagpok (Tag.); katatbun (Tag.); katingi (Bon.); kodang (Mbo.); kolagpung-pula (Sbl.); kolen (Ilk.); koleng (Ilk.); liputing-gubat(Tag.); lunidang (Bon.); malasiak (Bik.);malayambis(Tag.);mampa(Neg.); maramaatam (Ibn.); mulang (Ibn.); oksor (Ilk.); pamutul (Sbl.); panghas (p. Bis.); paninglon (Sbl.); pataktol (Pamp.); pingil (Neg.); pagnaan (Mbo.); sirapian (Bik.); tagpo (Tag., Bik., C. Bis., Sul.); tagpung-pula (Tag.); takpo (Bik.); tamil (C. Bis.); tayupo (C. Bis.); tukal (Tag.); turo (Pamp.).

Tagpo is common in primary forests at low and medium altitudes, ascending to 1,000 meters throughout the Philippines. This is a small tree reaching a height of about 10 meters. The leaves are alternate, oblanceolate, 6 to 15 centimeters long., 2 to 6 centimeters wide, elliptic-oblanceolate, and pointed at both ends. The flowers are white or pink, fragrant, borne on compound, terminal, or lateral inflorescences, and about 1 centimeter in length. The fruit is dark blue or purple, rounded, and about 5 to 8 millimeters in diameter.

The flowers and fruit are cooked as a flavoring with fish. In the Philippines, Guerrero states that the leaves are used on wounds.

PAYCHOTRIA LUCONIESIS (Cham. & Schlecht.) F- Vill.
Coffea luconiensis Cham. & Schlecht.
Grumilea luconiensis Merr.
Paederia tacpo Blanco
Psychotria malayana F.-Vill

Local names: Altoko (mang.); dumamai (Gad.); kadpaayan (Ilk.); kalabol (Sbl.); katagpo (Pamp., Tag.); katgpong-gubat (Tag.); kombates (Tag.); lugani (Bon.); madantauan (Mbo.); ñguspul (Ig.); tagpo (Tag.); tagpong-gubat (Tag.); takpo (Tag.); tatanok (Sbl.).

Tagpong-gubat is found only in the Philippines, being common in thickets and secondary forest at low and medium altitudes in most or all provinces of Luzon, and in Mindoro, Masbate, Leyte, and Panay.

This is smooth, erect shrub 1.5 to 5 meters in height. The leaves are smooth and shinning, oblong to elliptic-oblong, 8 to 20 centimeters in length, pointed at both ends and short-stalked. The flowers are white, and occur in crowded terminal in florescences 2 to 3 centimeters long. The corolla is 4 to 4.5 millimeters long, and has a hairy throat. The fruit is somewhat fleshy, obovoid, 5 to 6 millimeters long, and yellow or reddish. The seeds are plano-convex.

In the Philippines the fresh leaves are used as topicals for headaches. A decoction of the fresh, young leaves is used for cleansing ulcers and as a topical for ulcerated wounds. Guerrero reports that a decoction of the root is administered as an antidysentery remedy.

PARAMERI LAEVIGATA (A. Juss.) Moldenke
Parameria barbata (Blume) K. Schum.
Parsonia barbata (Blume
Ecdysanthera barbata Miq.
Ecdysanthera glandulifera A. DC.
Echite torosa Llanos
Parameria vulneraria Radlk.
Parameria philippinensis Radlk.
Parameria glandulifera Benth.
Paramaria glandulifera Benth. Var. philippinensis Stapf

Local names: Bulau-bulau (P. Bis.); dugtong-ahas (Tag.); gamot-smabali (Tag.); ikdig-ñga-purau (Ilk.); inggiu-na-puti (Tag.); itiban (Tag.0; karkarsang (Ig.); kuni-na-puti (Tag.); lumpit (Ilk.); lupiit (Ilk.); ogoi (Ig.); parugtong-ahas (Tag.); pataan (Ilk.); patian (Ilk.); pulang-pulang (Ilk.); sada (Ig.); sadak (Ilk.); sagid (Bis.); sagit (Tag.); tagolauai (Tag.); taguk-taguk (Bis.); tagulauai (P. Bis.); yakdig (Ilk.).

Tagulauai is common in thickets and open forest at low and medium altitudes in Ilocos Norte, La Union, Bontoc, Benguet, Nueva Vizcaya, Zambales, Bulacan, Pampanga, Bataan, and Rizal Provinces in Luzon; and in Mindoro, Busuanga, Palawan, Panay, and Cebu. It also occurs from Sumatra, Java, and Borneo to the Moluccas.

This plant is a woody vine. The leaves are oblong or obovate-lanceolate, 7 to 10 centimeters in length, and pointed at both ends. The flowers are fairly small, white, and clustered. The fruit is very long and slender, 15 to 20 centimeter in length, smooth, and much narrowed between the seeds. The seeds are about a centimeter in length, sharply pointed at one end and crowned at the other end with numerous, white hairs about 2.5 centimeters long.

According to Zipperer, the bark contains only a caoutchouc 8.5 per cent, but this may be mixed with a resin. Burkill reports that the rubber contains 6 per cent of resin.

Burkill quotes Greshoff, who states that according to a chemical examination, physiologically, it is inert.

In the Philippines, the value of “tagulauai” oil as a cicatrizant has been well known for a long time. For this purpose, the bark is macenerated in coconut oil. An infusion of the leaves and flowers is taken internally as an emmenagogue, to facilitate menstruation. Guerrero states that the bark, macerated in oil, is an efficacious vulnerary and is also used internally for the cure of tuberculosis.

Zipperer speaks of the medicines, “Aceite de Moros,” “Balsamo de Cebu” (Spanish, Visayan), which are prepared by cooking with coconut oil the root-bark and branches of Parameria barbata.

Burkill says that the decocted bark is drunk in the Sunda Islands and in Java after childbirth to make the uterus shrink. He quotes Rumpf, who says that in Bali a decoction of the bark is given for dysentery and is used for wounds

VERNONIA CINERIA (Linn.) Less.
Conyza cineria Linn.
Eupatorium luzoniensis Llano

Local names: Agoas-moro (Ilk.); bulabod (Sub.); kolong-kugon (S.L. Bis.); magmansi (Pang.); sagit (Bon.); tagulinau (Tag.); tagulinai (Tag.).

Tagulinai is found throughout the Philippines as a common weed in open, waste places in all settled areas at low and medium altitudes. It occurs in the Old World Tropics, and was introduced into the New World.

This medicinal herb is erect, slender, sparingly branched, somewhat hairy, annual, and 20 to 80 centimeters in height. The leaves (smaller at higher altitudes) are oblanceolate to obovate, and 2 to 6 centimeters long, with pointed or obtuse tips and shallowly toothed margins. The heads are small, stalked, borne in open, lax corymbs, and about 7 millimeters long and 2.5 millimeters in diameter. The flowers are rather bright purple, about 20 in each head, and twice as long as the involucral bracts, which are linear and silky. The achenes are hairy and cylindrical.

Guerrero states that in the Philippines an infusion of this plant is taken internally as a cough medicine. The plant is also said to be used on wounds. The leaves are used in decoction against humid herpes, eczema, etc. Dymock quotes Ainslie, who mentions the plant as being used in medicine by the Hindus, in
decoction, to promote perspiration in febrile affections. Nadkarni adds that, combined with quinine, it has been found to be beneficial in malarial fevers. Kirtikar and Basu report that the expressed juice of the plant is given for piles. In Chuta Nagpur the whole plant is given as a remedy for spasms of the bladder and for strangury. The root is given for dropsy. The flowers are administered for conjunctivitis. The seeds are employed in Patna as an alexipharmic and anthelmintic.

Sanyal and Ghose say that the fresh juice of the leaves is used in bloody dysentery. Ridley states that the leaves are used for colic.

Caius reports that in the Nighantas the plant is useful in the treatment of asthma, bronchitis, and consumption. The flowers are reputed to cure fevers. In Senegal and French Guinea an infusion of the plant is used to wash a newborn infant and is given also to children with incontinence of urine. The bitter root is a vermifuge. In Ceylon it is used for wounds and sores, and taken internally to promote perspiration.

EMILIA SONCHIFOLIA (Linn.) DC.
Cacalia sonchifolia Linn.
Crassocephalum sonchifolium Less.
Emilia humifusa Elm.
Emilia marivelensis Elm

Local names: Kipot-kipot (Bik.); lamlampaka (Ilk.); libun (Bik.); maarsilanana (Tag.); tagulinau (Tag.); tagulinas (Tag.); yagod-no-kangkang (Iv.); cetim (Bis.).

Tagulinau is found throughout the Philippines, in open waste places, cultivated land, etc., in and about towns and settlements at low and medium altitudes. It is a pantropic weed of Old World origin.

This is an erect or ascending, variable, smooth or sparingly hairy, more or less branched plant 10 to 40 centimeters in height. The leaves are stalkless and somewhat fleshy and clasping, the lower ones being lyrate-lobed or sinuate-toothed and 5 to 10 centimeters long, and the upper ones much smaller and usually entire. The flowering heads are 12 to 24 millimeters in length and long peduncled; their branches are usually dichotomous. The involucre-bracts are green, cylindric, somewhat inflated below, and about as long as the purple flowers. The achenes are narrowly oblong, about 2.4 millimeters long, and ribbed. The pappus is white, soft, and copious.

According to Burkill the plant is edible and is used in salad. It is eaten in Indo-China and throughout Malaysia. The Malays, perhaps, do not make much use of it, but in countries where there is a pronounced dry season, it is very useful. It is best eaten as salad before the flowering stems shoot up. Burkill says that it is described [Bull. Econ. Indochine 7 (1905) 894] as having a flavor hard to analyze – slightly acid, with a touch of bitterness, very delicate, and without any trace of unpleasantness; it suggests young dandelion plants. At a later stage the tem-leaves can be eaten, but it is best to cook them.

In the Philippines the leaves and flowers are used as a styptic for cuts and wounds, particularly for long-standing superficial ulcers which are rebellious to all forms of orthodox medical treatment. A decoction or infusion of the plant is given as an expectorant and an antihaemostatic. Guerrero states that the decocted leaves have proved very efficacious in case of fever. They also used in combating infantile tympanites.

Kirtikar and Basu quote Rheede, who states that in Malabar a decoction of the plant is said to be febrifuge. Mixed with sugar, the juice is given in bowel complaints. In Travancore the pure juice of the leaves is poured drop by drop into the eyes for about ten minutes in cases of night-blindness. The natives consider the juice to be as cooling as rose water and prescribed it in eye inflammations. Crevost and Petelot say that in Indo-China a decoction of the leaves is prescribed as an antipyretic. Caius says that in the Gold Coast the leaves, mixed with Guinea grains and lime-juice, are a remedy for sore throat in La Reunion the plant is used as an astringent, antiasthmatic, and a vulnerary. Ridley reports that in Malaya the leaves are used as a cure for coughs and phthisis. Burkill says that in the Dutch Indies the roots are taken to arrest diarrhea. Externally, they are used in poultices for small sores by the Malays; for fevers and swellings by the Javanese; and for fevers in Sumatra. Heyne states that the Javanese drop the juice into eyes that have become blinded from the sun, and into sore ears.

VANIERIA COCHINCHINENSIS Lour.
Cudrania javanensis Trecul.
Trophis spinosa Blume
Batis spinosa Roxb.
Morus tinctoria Blanco
Broussonetia tinctoria Blanco
Cudrania obovata Trecul.
Cudrania spinosa Hochr.

Local names: kokom-pusa (Ilk.); patdang-laburo (Tag.); tahid-labuyo(Tag.); talobtob (Sbl.); tatlolong (Ilk., Ig.).

Tahid-labuyo is found from northern Luzon to Mindanao from sea level an altitude of 1,400 meters. It also occurs in India to East Africa, China, Malaya, and Australia.

It is a scandent or strangling, smooth shrub, growing from 2 to 4 meters in length, the branches of which are armed with stout, sharp, straight, or somewhat recurved spines, 1 to 1.5 centimeters long. The leaves are elliptic-ovate to oblong-ovate or oblong-obovate, 3 to 8 centimeters long, shining, the tip tapering to a short point, and the base rounded. The heads are solitary or in pairs, rounded, and short peduncled. The female heads are 7 to 8 millimeters in diameter, yellowish, dense, and in fruit, fleshy and up to 5 centimeters in diameter.

According to Burkill the heartwood produces a yellow dye which is used in the Batik industry in Java. Mixed with indigo, it produces a green dye. In the Moluccas the young leaves are eaten raw.

As to its medicinal properties, in the Philippines a decoction of the roots is given to alleviate, coughing, and for gastralgia. Burkill reports that in Sarawak the plant is used after childbirth. In the Moluccas the ground wood is made into paste and applied as a cooling agent in fevers.

OXALIS REPENS Thumb.
Oxalis acetosella Blanco
Oxalis corniculata Miq

Local names: Daraisig (Bik.); iayo (Pamp.); kungi (Pamp.); kanapa (Ig.); malabalugbugdagis (Pamp.); marasiksik (Ilk.); pikhik (Iv.); salamagi (Bon.); susukovili (Tag.); taingan-daga(Tag.); Indian sorrel (Engl.).

Taingan-daga is found in waste places, open grasslands, etc., from sea level to an altitude of 2,200 meters throughout the Philippines. It also occurs in the warmer parts of the Old World.

This plant is a small, variable, prostrate herb, fairly covered with long, scattered hairs. The stems are creeping, grow up to 50 centimeters in length, and usually root at the nodes. The leaves are 3-foliolate, with their petiole 5 centimeters long or less. The leaflets are obcordate, 0.5 to 1.5 centimeters long, and stalkless. The flowers are yellow, one two several on each peduncle, subumbellately disposed, and nearly 1 centimeter long. The petals are obcordate. The capsules are hairy, subcylindric, and 1 to 1.8 centimeters long.

According to Nadkarni, the plant has an acid taste, owing to the presence of acid oxalate of potassium. In the Philippines the leaves are used as an ingredient of the salad and are considered antiscorbutic. The juice of the leaves is used also for cleansing wounds and for itches. Tavera reports that in decoction of the leaves is given to fevers in dysentery.

Nadkarni reports that the leaves have long been considered cooling, refrigerant, antiscorbutic, astringent, appetizing, and useful in fevers and biliousness. They have been used for removing corns, warts and other excrescence on the skin. Bruised with or without water, formed into a poultice, and applied over inflames parts, the leaves relieve pain and other inflammatory symptoms. The fresh juice of the leaves is believed to relieve the intoxication produced by Datura. It is also believed, on application, to remove fiber over the cornea or opacities of the cornea. The expressed juice of the cornea made into a sherbet with a little sugar, is often prescribed in dysentery and prolapse of the rectum and also to allay thirst. The leaves, boiled in buttermilk and given 2-3 times a day, prove useful in chronic dysentery and enteritis.

Stuart reports that the juice is held to be antidotal to mercurial and arsenical poisoning, as well as beneficial when applied to burns, insect and scorpion bites, and eruptions. Crevost and Petelot state that the plant is antiscorbutic in China and India.

Burkill quotes Rumpf, who described a very simple method of preparation: to pound the leaves with a little rice-flour, the paste produced being an application for prickly heat; and, a weaker form, a helpful wash for sore mouth and gums. Burkill adds that in Java the leaves, with onion and salt, are used for stomachache, and the juice is taken for coughs.

GOBOCARYUM CALLERYANUM (Baill.) Becc.
Phlebocalymna calleryana Baill.
Gonocaryum tarlacense Vidal

Local names: Ampalang (Klg.); angkak (Bik.); basabasa (Ibn.); busigan(Ibn.); gohan (Klg.); karasoko (Ibn.); lunas (Tag.); malagohan (Klg.); malapinggan(Tag.); malasamat (Tag.); malasitum (Pamp.); malatapai (Tag.); maragauak(Ibn.); maragaued (Ibn.); rogrogao (Ilk.); taingang-babui (Tag.); uratan (Ilk.); yaya(Neg.).

Taingang-babui is found only in the Philippines, common in primary forests at low and medium altitudes, ascending to 750 meters, in the Batan Islands and in all provinces in Luzon.

This is a small, erect tree with long, slender branches. The leaves are few, alternate, leathery, smooth, shining, paler beneath, broadly ovate or subelliptic, 18 centimeters long or less, about 9 centimeters wide, rounded at both ends, or broadly obtuse at the base. The inflorences is axillary, cymosely short-branched,
scarcely longer than the petioles. The flowers are pale white, with small calyx and columnar, and are borne on inflorescences at the axils of the leaves. The fruit is nutlike, smooth, purplish-black, ellipsoid, 3 to 4 centimeters long, with a black fibrous husk surrounding a fairly hard, white kernel.

According to Guerrero the plant is said to be used as a cure for stomach troubles.

EUPHORBIA ATOTO Forst., f
Euphorbia dulcis Blanc

Local names: Tairas (Iv.); lamiñgo (Bag.).

Tairas is found along sandy seashores as a characteristic strand plant throughout the Philippines. It also occurs in India to Southern China and Formosa through Malaya to Australia and Polynesia.

This plant is slender, smooth herb, up to 35 centimeters in height, with ascending and prostate stems. The leaves are oblong, 1.5 to 4.5 centimeters long, and 0.7 to 1.5 centimeters wide, with entire margins. The inflorescence is very short and is borne on the upper axil of the leaf. The capsule is small, ovoid, and about 4 millimeters in diameter.

According to Caius, in Indo-China women use the milky juice as an emmenagogue, and also as an abortifacient. He quotes Sallet, who states that the plant, if cooked with honey over a water bath, is a good remedy for tuberculosis. In New Caledonia seawater in which the plant has been soaked and malaxated is very much used as a purgative.

INDIGOFERA HIRSUTA Linn
Indigofera angustifolia Blanco
Indigofera tinctoria Nave

Local names: Taiuman (Tag.); taium-taiuman (Tag.).

Taiuman is found in waste places in and about towns from northern Luzon to Mindanao. It is an introduced weed which is pantropic in distribution. This plant is an erect, branched, annual, half-woody herb, growing from 0.4 to 1 meter in height. The stems are reddish brown, and covered with spreading brown or purplish hairs. The leaves are 8 to 15 centimeters long. The stipules are linear, hairy, and 1 centimeters long. The leaflets are obovate, 5 to 11, 1.5 to 3 centimeters long, hairy, and pale beneath. The flowers are about 6 millimeters long, reddish purple, and crowded in axillary racemes which are 6 to 20 centimeters long. The pods are straight, reflexed, 1.5 to 2.5 centimeters long, about 2.5 millimeters wide, and covered with brown, spreading hairs, and contain 4 to 6 seeds.

Burkill says that the Indigofera hirsuta has been tried as a cover crop and as green manure, and has been well reported on. Dalziel states that they species is said to yield indigo in West Africa and is useful cover crop for coconut plantations.

In the Philippines a decoction of fresh leaves is given in diarrhea and as a stomachic. According to Dalziel, medicinally, a decoction of the leaves is used in the gold coast as a lotion for yaws. Nadkarni asserts that in India a decoction of the fresh leaves is also given in cerebral disorders.

VISCUM ARTICULATUM Murm. F.
Viscum compressum Poir.
Viscum philippense Llanos
Viscum opuntioides Bl.
Viscum falcatum Llanos
Viscum moniloforme Bl.
Viscum dichotomum D. Don.
Viscum flexuosum Gamble
Viscum angulatum ? DC.
Aspidixia articulata Van Tiegh.
Aspidixia dichotoma ? Van Tiegh.
Aspidixia angulata Van Tiegh.

Local names: Logolai (Bag.); taka (Ig.);

Taka is found from northern Luzon to Mindanao, on trees, at low and medium altitudes, ascending to 1,200 meters in some regions. It also occurs in India to Formosa and Malaya.

The plant is a much branched, slender, smooth, pale, leafless parasite, forming a green undershrub. The branches are flat, with pendulous tufts, 15 to 90 centimeters long; the internodes being variable in length; usually a trifle wider at the distal end, and striate. The leaves are visible only in the very young
internodes as small bracts below the flowers. The flowers are very minute, stalkless, and in stalkless, 3-flowered spikes. There are two or several spikes at a joint. The perianth of the male flowers is reflexed, and hardly ¼ millimeter long. The female flowers are about q/2 millimeter long, with two bracts, and the
perianth lobes erect and triangular. The fruit is stalkless, nearly spherical, about 3 millimeters in diameter, white and shining when ripe.

According to Kirtikar and Basu and Chopra the plant is given in cases of fever with aching limbs.

ROTULA AQUATICA Lour.
Rhabdia lyciodes Mart

Local names: Bongtal (Ilk.); buntut-buaya (Tag.); kulatai (Tag.); takad (Tag.).

Takad grows characteristically among rocks and trailing over gravel bars in steam beds at low altitudes in Cagayan, Isabela, Ilocos Norte, Zambales, Bulacan, and Rizal Provinces in Luzon; and in Mindoro. It is pantropic in distribution.

This shrub or bush reaches a height of 2 to 3 meters. The leaves are alternate, imbricate, ovate-oblong, usually 0.8 to 1.5 centimeters in length, and short-stalked. The flowers are small and crowded, and are borne on terminal inflorescences. There are five sepals which are about 4.5 millimeters long, and narrow, with sharp points. The corolla is purple or pink, 5 to 6 millimeters long, and five-lobed. The fruit is somewhat rounded, fleshy, and about 4 millimeters in diameter, and contains four seeds.

Guerrero states that in the Philippines the stems are used in decoction as a sudorific and diuretic.

CENTELLA ASIATICA (Linn.) Urban
Hydrocotyle asiatica Linn

Local names: Hahanghalo (C. Bis.); panggaga (Sub.); pispising (Bon.); tagaditak (Iv.); takip-kohol (Tag.); takip-suso (Tag.); tapiñgan-daga (Tag.); yahong-yahong (S. L. Bis.); Indian Hydrocotyle (Engl.).

Takip-kohol is found in open, damp grasslands, on rice paddy banks, etc., throughout the Philippines. It is pantropic in distribution.

This is a prostate, sparingly hairy or nearly smooth herb. The stems roots at the nodes. The leaves are rounded to reniform, 2 o 5 centimeters wide, horizontal, more or less cupped, rounded at the tip, and kidney-shaped or heartshaped at the base, the rounded lobes often overlapping. The petioles are erect and long. The peduncles occur in pairs of threes, are less than 1 centimeter long, and usually bear 3 sessile flowers. The petals are dark-purple, ovate, and about 1 millimeters long. The fruit is minute, ovoid, white or green, and reticulate, each with 9 sub similar longitudinal ridges.

Lepine isolated from the leaves a substance which he names vallarine, obtainable from dry plant to the extent of 0.8 to 1 per cent. This seems a to be responsible for the odor and is considered by Lepine as the chemically active principle of the plant. He described it as an oily, nonvolatile liquid. The authors of Pharmacographia Indica remarked that they failed to obtain anything like vellarine from the dry herb. Dr. J. Marañon analyzed the air-dried leaves, his results being as follows:

A. Proximate chemical composition of the leaves.

B. Examination for some particular groups of plant constituents.

The volatile oil has a characteristic odor and a slightly bitter taste, resembling the odor and taste of the fresh leaves when crushed and when they are eaten. Effort is being made at present to obtain a sufficient amount of this oil for chemical and pharmacological tests with the view of determining if it is the alleged active principle, vellarine, as reported by Lapine.

Some crystals of an organic compound have also been isolated from the leaves, but this compound, according to Pharmacological test, does not have effect on blood pressure, as is the case of the aqueous extract of the leaves. Accordingly a further search for the constituents possessing the property to lower blood pressure is at present being attempted.

C. Chemical composition as reported by other investigators:

Watt observes that in a note on Hydrocotyle, by Dr. Clemente Daruty, however, vellarine is described, and appears to have been again obtained. Watt remarks: “Vellarine is an insipissated oil of a pale yellowish color, with a bitter, pungent, and persistent taste and a marked odor of Hydrocotyle; but which is subject to variations under the influence of heat, humidity, and even of the atmosphere, volatilizing at 120° C. it is soluble in alcohol. Of this active principle the plant contains .07 per mille. There are also found in it two resinous ingredients, one green, in the proportion of .085 per mille, the other brown, in the proportion of .3 per cent, and traces of tannic acid. Vellarine is obtained principally from the roots of the plant.”

Brown quotes Dr. A. Hermano, formerly of the Institute of Science, who found a higher percentage of vitamin B in the leaves than in the leaves of any other of the numerous plants examined by him. Brown states that this may, perhaps, account for some of the properties ascribed to the plant. The leaves are official in the following Pharmacopoeias: Dutch (4); French (4); Mexican (2-4); Spanish (7); and Venezuelan (1,2). They are official also in the Pharmacopoeia of India. According to Bretschneider, the stem and leaves
are official in the Materia Medica of the ancient Chinese.

The leaves of Centella asiatica have been widely regarded as having tonic and stimulant properties and have been recommended for many complaints. The plant is reputed to have a direct action on lowering blood pressure. It is also known as a rejuvenating medicament. The leaves are sometimes eaten raw, but more usually a decoction or tea is made from them.

In the Philippines, according to Guerrero, the sap of the leaves is employed as a curative for wounds of the sclerotic. The decoction is considered a diuretic and is said to be useful in gonorrhoea.

Watt states that judging from its physiological action, the drug should be principally valuable as a stimulant to the cutaneous circulation in skin diseases; and, indeed, for this purpose it will be found to have chiefly employed. Through it appears to have no specific effect in leprosy or in syphilis, there can be little doubt that by its action in stimulating circulation it is of value in these affections. Watt quotes Drs. Lolliot, Cazenove, and Bertin, who find it of little value in advanced cases of tubercular leprosy, but extol its virtues in the treatment of chronic and obstinate eczema. It has also been prescribed with excellent results in cases of secondary and tertiary syphilis accompanied by gummatous infiltration and ulceration, in chronic and callous ulcers, as a stimulant to healthy mucous secretion in infantile diarrhea and ozoena, in cases of scrofulous ulceration and enlargement of glands and abscess, and in chronic rheumatism. It has also been employed with success as a diuretic in several diseases, and as an emmenagogue amenorrhea. Several preparations of the drug (roots and leaves) are recommended by Watt, such as (1) powder; (2) poultice; (3) plaster; (4) syrup; (5) ointment mixed with vaseline; (6) fluid extract; and (7) decoction. Drury says that the leaves are toasted and given in infusion to children in bowelcomplaints and fevers. They are also applied as an anti-inflammatory, to parts that have seed are used for dysentery, fever, and headache.

LIMNOPHILA RUGOSA (Roth) Merr.
Capraria gratissima Roxb.
Herpestis rugosa Roth
Limnophila menthastrum Benth.
Limnophila roxburghii G. Don
Stemodia menthastrum Benth.
Tala odorata Blanco

Local names: Bintugo (Sub.); kalaoo (Bik.); patalatala (Pamp.); tala (Tag., Bik.); tala-tala (Pamp.); tara-tara (Ilk.); taram-hapan (Tag.).

Tala is found in open, wet places at low altitudes in Lepanto, Nueva Vizcaya, Pampanga, Bulacan, Camarines and Sorsogon Provinces in Luzon; Palawan, Panay, Negros, and Mindanao. It also occurs in India to Malaya and Polynesia.

This is an erect herb reaching a height of about 50 centimeters. The leaves are opposite, oblong-ovate or ovate, 3 to 10 centimeters long, 1.5 to 4 centimeters wide, pointed at both ends, and toothed in the margins. The upper surface of the leaves is rough. The flowers are about a centimeter long, purplish, and clustered on stems which are found in the axils of the leaves or which terminate the leafy branches.

Tala is aromatic and is used in cooking. It is also utilized to perfume the hair. The leaves contain an essential oil. In Java, Ochse records its use as a flavoring for food.

According to Tavera the infused leaves are given as a diuretic and digestive tonic. Burkill quotes Rumpf, who says that the leaves in decoction are swallowed for mild gonorrhoea and impotence.

SACCHARUM SPONTANEUM Linn.subsp. INDICUM Hack
Saccharum spontaneum Linn
Saccharum spontaneum Linn., subsp. luzonicum Hack
Anthistiria gigantea Blanco
Saccharum insulare Brongn var amplum Anders
Saccharum insulare Brongn var depauperatum Ander

Local name: Bogang (C. Bis.); bugang (C. Bis.); lidda (Ilk.); salin (Bon.); sikal (Ibn.); talahib (Tag.); tibayo (Bag.); tigbau (S. L. Bis., P. Bis.).

Talahib is found in open areas at low and medium altitudes, ascending to 1,500 meters, and often gregarious, occupying almost exclusively large areas throughout the Philippines. It also occurs from India to Southern China and through Malaya to Polynesia.

Talahib is a coarse erect perennial usually more or less tufted or gregarious grass, attaining a height of 1 to 3.5 meters, and rising from stout underground rootstocks. The leaves are harsh, linear, 0.5 to 1 meter long, 6 to 15 millimeters wide. The panicles are white, erect 15 to 30 centimeters long, with the branches slender whorled fragile and the joints covered with soft long, soft, white hairs. The spikelets are about 3.5 millimeters long, very much shorter than the copious, long, white hairs, at the base.

A decoction of the roots is used in the Philippines as a diuretic. Sulit reports that the warm pulp of the stem is used as a poultice and applied to painful parts of the legs, etc., in cases of suffering from beriberi. In Bengal, according to Nadkarni the roots are used as galactagogue and diuretic.

MUSSAENDA ANISOPHYLLA Vidal

Local names: Ayonakilat (Lan.); bodas (Ig.); buyon (Bis.); lalabo (Pang.); talig-harap (Tag.); tinga-tinga (Tag.).

Talig-harap is an endemic species found in forests at low and medium altitudes, ascending to 600 meters in Pangasinan, Bataan, Laguna, Quezon, and Albay Provinces in Luzon; and in Mindanao.

This shrub grows from 3 to 8 meters in height. The branchlets are rather lax and hairy, the older ones being grayish-white and lenticelled. The pairs of leaves are diverse in either shape or size. They are oblong-ovate to subelliptic; the smaller ones are 5 to 13 centimeters long and the larger ones 18 to 27 centimeters long; both leaves are softly hairy on both surfaces, but especially on the lower. The flowers are cymosely clustered on terminal, small, and spreading panicles. The calyx is covered with sharp-pointed, appressed, straight and stiff hairs; the outer sepal extends into a broad, slenderly pedicelled, persistent,
whitish, ovate bract 4 to 5.5 centimeters long. The corolla is densely hairy also, tubular, and yellow in the lobes. The fruit is ellipsoid, pale green, 1.5 to 2 centimeters long, smooth with age, and warty.

In the Philippines a decoction of the fresh leaves is given for asthma.

TERMINALIA CATAPPA Linn.
Terminalia moluccana Lam.
Juglans catappa Lour.
Terminalia latifolia Blanco
Terminalia mauritiana Blanco

Local names: Almendras (Sp.); almendro (Sp.); banilak (Pamp.); dalasa (Pamp.); dalinsi (Bik.); dalisai (Ibn.); kalisai (Pamp.); hitam (Pamp.); lugo (Ilk.); savidug (Iv.); salaisai (Sbl.); taisai (Sul.); talisai (Tag., Bag., Sbl., Bik., Bis., Pamp.); talisi (Yak.); yalisai (Tag.).

Talisai is found throughout the Philippines along seashores and is often planted inland. It also occurs in the Old World tropics generally and was introduced into the New World.

This medicinal plant is large, deciduous tree, sometimes reaching a height of 25 meters. It is smooth or nearly so. The branches are horizontally whorled. The leaves are shining, obovate, and 10 to 25 centimeters long, tapering below to a stout. The flowers are white, small, and borne on spikes in the axils of the leaves, the spikes being 6 to 18 centimeters long. The fruit is smooth, compressed, ellipsoid, 3 to 6 centimeters long, and prominently 2-ridged, or keeled, down the sides. The pericarp is fibrous and fleshy, and the endocarp is hard.

Talisai is often planted inland as a shade tree. The kernels are eaten. The luscious and sweet-acid pericarp is also edible. According to Watt, the oil is similar to almond oil in flavor, odor, and specific gravity.

Wehmer records that the seed contains 51.2 per cent fixed oil (called Catappa oil) with 54 per cent olein, palmitin, and 16 per cent stearin. Burkill reports that the bark contains tannin. Cruz and West extracted the oil from Philippine kernels and report a yield of 50 per cent of oil. The physical and chemical constants of Philippine talisai oil are as follows:

The first to report the medicinal virtues of talisai was Delgado, who states that the leaves applied to the head and sides are refreshing and sudorific. According to Guerrero, the red leaves are used to expel worms, while the fruit is said to contain a purgative substance. The leaves are mixed with oil and rubbed on the breast to cure pain. The bark is astringent and is used against gastric fevers and bilious diarrhea; also as an antidysenteric. The sap of the tender leaves, mixed and cooked with the oil of the kernel, is, according to Father Blanco, a specific against leprosy.

According to Burkill, the bark is astringent and is used in dysentery from India to the Philippines. Correa says that the roots and the bark are similarly used in Brazil. Dymock, Warden, and Hooper state that the bark has been recommended for internal administration in the form of a decoction as a remedy for gonorrhoea and leucorrhoea. Holland says that the bark is recommended as a cure for bilious fever. Perrot and Hurrier report that the Sino-Annamites use it for cramps of the stomach.

Burkill reports that the leaves act as a sudorific and that they are applied to rheumatic joints and used for dysentery in Indo-China. Kirtikar and Basu and Nadkarni inform us that the juice of the young leaves is employed in southern India in the preparation of an ointment for scables, leprosy, and other cutaneous diseases, and is also believed to be useful internally for headache and colic. Holland states that the leaves, macerated in palm oil, are applied as a remedy in tonsillitis.

Kirtikar and Basu, Chopra, and Nadkarni report that the talisai oil is a substitute for almond oil.

CURCULIGO ORCHIOIDES Gaertn.
Gethyllis acaulis Blanc

Local names: Sulsilitik (Bon.); taloangi (Bag.); tataluangi (Buk.).

Taloangi is found in Bontoc, Pangasinan, Rizal, and Sorsogon Provinces in Luzon, and in Mindoro, Semirara, Palawan, Biliran, Panay, and Mindanao, in open grassland chiefly in cogonales (Imperata) areas at low and medium altitudes. It also occurs in India to Java.

The plant is small, stemless herb with stout and elongated rootstock and with copious, spreading fibers. The leaves are sessile, grasslike, linear or narrowly lanceolate, 15 to 20 centimeters long, 1 to 2.5 centimeters wide, and with pointed tip. The scape is very short. The flowers are distichous, bright yellow, with the lowest in the raceme perfect, and the upper, male. The perianth produced above the ovary consists of filiform, hairy, very slender strips which are 10 to 25 centimeters long, and which alone, with the perianth segments, appear above ground. The segments are 12 to 18 millimeters long, oblong-ovate, acute, and dorsally hairy. The stamens are small, with short filaments. The fruit is oblong, about 10 millimeters in diameter. The seeds are oblong and black, with the testa deeply grooved in wavy lines.

According to Nadkarni the tuberous root contains resin, tannin, mucilage, fat, starch, and ash with oxalate of calcium, etc. The chemical composition of the powdered roots as reported by Kirtikar and Basu is as follows:

Concerning the medicinal properties of this species, Guerrero says that the plant is used as a cure for skin diseases and for headache. The root, when powdered and used pure, or mixed with other tonic or carminative vegetable drugs, is considered tonic, pectoral, diuretic and aphrodisiac.

Kirtikar and Basu, Nadkarni, Drury, and Dey report that the root is aromatic and slightly bitter, and mucilaginous to the taste, and is considered demulcent, diuretic, and restorative.

Nadkarni states that the drug is given with milk and sugar a doses of two drams in gonorrhaea, leucorrhhhoea. In cases of asthma, jaundice, diarrhea, the tubers are administered as follows: They are freed from rootlets, cut in slices by a wooden knife, and then given in doses of 180 grains beaten sugar with an equal quantity of sugar in a glass of milk, in the glass of a thick mucilage.

SOLANUM MELONGENA Linn.

Local names: Berengena (Sp.); eggplant (Engl.); brinjal (Engl.); talong (Bik., Bon., Bis., Tag.); tarong (Ilk.); tolung (Sul.).

Talong is cultivates throughout the Philippines for its edible fruit, but is nowhere spontaneous. It is cultivated also in all warm countries.

This vegetable is a coarse, usually branched, somewhat prickly or unarmed, erect, half-woody plant 0.4 to 1 meter in height. The leaves are ovate to oblong-ovate, 10 to 25 centimeters long, stellate-hairy beneath, and irregularly and shallowly lobed at the margin. The flowers are axillary, about 2.5 centimeters long, and purplish or bluish. The fruit is fleshly, smooth, purple, up to 25 centimeters long, extremely, variable in shape, rounded to oblong, or cylindric-oblong.

The fruit makes an excellent vegetable. The elongated king is most cultivates. It is eaten before it ripens, being much preferred before the seeds harden. It is cooked in various ways. Eggplant is used also in native pickles and in curries in India. It is fairly good sources of calcium, phosphorus, and iron. According to Hermano and Sepulveda it is a good source of vitamin B. Nadkarni states that the green leaves are the main supply of vitamin C.

Read records that the fruit contains trigonelline; chlorine; vitamin A1, B1and C1; fat 0.1 percent; and protein 2.2 percent.

The fruit is official in the Spanish (4) Pharmacopoeia. In the Philippines, Guerrero reports that the decocted roots are taken internally as an anti asthmatic and as a general stimulant. The leaves are employed to cure piles.

According to Dalziel the root of the wild plant is boiled along with sour milk and grain porridge, for the treatment of syphilis. The juice of the fruit, sometimes with the pounded leaves, is rubbed on the hands for an infective eruption supposed to be syphilitic. Regnault reports that the Chinese and Annamites use to the roots for skin diseases.

According Chopra and Kirtikar and Basu the leaves are narcotic. Stuart says that the roots, dried stalk, and leaves are used in decoction for washing sores and discharging surfaces, and as an astringent for haemorrhages from the bladder and for the other haemorrhages fluxes. Corre and Lejanne state that the leaves are used as an anodynes. Dalziel reports that in French Guinea a decoction or infusion of the leaves is a medicine for throat and stomach troubles. Nadkarni says that the long fruit is phlegmatic and generative of phthisis, coughs, and loss of appetite. The tender fruit is antiphlegmatic and alleviative of wind and the ripe fruit is bilious. The burnt fruit is light in digestion, purgative, slightly bilious, and beneficial in phlegm, wind, and obesity. It has also been recommended as an excellent remedy for those suffering from liver complaints. Stuart reports that the fruit is regarded as cooling, and is used, bruised with vinegar, as a poultice for abscesses and cracked nipples. The peduncle, incinerated, is used in intestinal haemorrhages, piles, and toothache.

Kirtikar and Basu report that the seeds are used as a stimulant but are apt to lead to dyspepsia and constipation.

SOLANUM INDICUM Linn

Common names: Talong-pipit, talong-na-puti (Tag.); Indian night shade(Engl.).

Talong-pipit is found in these Islands only in Davao, Mindanao, on rocky bluffs near the seashore. It also occurs in India to southern China and Malaya.

This is an erect undershrub 0.30 to 1.5 meters in height. The stems are much branched, and very prickly, bearing compressed, stout, often-recurved prickles. The leaves are ovate, 3.5 to 15 centimeters long, and 2.5 to 8 centimeters wide, lobed or pinnatifid in the margins, blunt or pointed at the tip, pointed at the base, and stellately wooly beneath. The leaves in the branchlets are much smaller. The flowers, which are blue, are borne in extra-axillary racemes. The calyx-lobes in flower are triangular, very woolly, unarmed or furnished with slender, straight spines. The corolla is broadly triangular, 2 to 2.5 centimeters long, and hairy on the outside. The fruit is yellow, rounded and about 1.5 centimeters in diameter.

Burkill reports that in Malaya the fruit is edible and is eaten half-ripe in curries. According to Chopra the fruit contains solanine and solanidine. Puntambekar and Krishna report that the oil from the seeds consists of the glycerides of lauric, palmitic, stearic, arachidic, oleic, and linoleic acids together with the phytosterols, sitoaterol and carpesterol, and a hydrocarbon of high molecular weight and of m. 66-67degree.

According to Nadkarni the plant is a cordial, an aphrodisiac, an astringent, and a resolvent. It is useful in asthma, dry coughs, chronic febrile affections, and colic with flatulence and worms; it is also recommended in dysuria. The root is regarded as diuretic, useful in coughs and catarrhal affections; it is also considered diaphoretic and stimulant. The vapor of the burning seeds is a remedy for odontalgia. In the for m of decoction (1 in 10), half a teacupful twice daily is given in dysuria. Burkill says that in Malaya the root is pounded and the pulp pressed into ulcerated sores. Heyne states that in Java a decoction is drunk as a diuretic.

Kirtikar and Basu report that the root, taken internally, manifests strongly exciting qualities, and is employed in difficult paturition and in toothache. It is also used in fevers, worm complaints, and colic. It is used in skin diseases of children. The juice of the leaves, with fresh juice of ginger, is administered to stop vomiting. The leaves and fruit, rubbed up with sugar, are used as an external application to itches. Perrot and Hurrier say that the fruit is tonic and laxative.

DATURA METEL Linn.
Datura alba Nees
Datura fastuosa Linn. var. alba C. B. Clarke
Datura fastuosa Linn

Local names: Kamkamaulau (Ilk.); katchibong (Bis.). katchobong (P. Bis.); kachubung (Sul.); katiabon (S.L. Bis.); salanpune (Pamp.); siva (Iv.); susupan(Ibn.); talampunai (Pamp., Tag.); talongpunai (Bik., Tag.); tarampunai (Tag.); tatchubong (Bis.); taubihong (Bis.); trapunai (Tag.); talong-punai na itim (Tag.); talong-punai na morado (Tag.); thorn apple (Engl.).

Talong-punai is found in open, waste places in and about settlements, throughout the Philippines. It is a native of tropical Asia, now pantropic in distribution.

This is a coarse, erect, branched, smooth or slightly hairy herb or shortlived shrub 0.5 to 2 meters in height. The leaves are ovate to oblong-ovate, 9 to 18 centimeters long, with inequilateral base, pointed tip, and irregularly and shallowly lobed margins. The flowers are very large, white or nearly purple, axillary, and solitary. The calyx is green, about 6 centimeters long, cleft at the apex, and divided into linear teeth. The corolla is about 15 centimeters long, and the mouth about 8 centimeters in diameter. The fruit is rounded, nodding green, about 3.5 centimeters in diameter, and covered with short, stout spines. The seeds are numerous, closely packed, nearly smooth, and pale brown.

Santos studied the mharmacognosy of D. alba and D. fastuosa, which are both considered in this book as synonyms of D. metel.

Wehmer records that the leaves of D. metel contain a total amount of 0.16 per cent of alkaloid; and that the seeds contain 0.50 per cent of scopolamine, hyoscyamine, and atropine. Hesse isolated in the flowers of D. fastuosa (D. Alba): scopolamine (hyoscine) 0.51 per cent; a little hyoscyamine, 0.03 per cent; and atropine, 0.01 per cent. Wehmer adds that the seeds contain hyoscyamine, 0.041 per cent; a little atropine (0.05 per cent as a chloride); scopolamine, 0.216 per cent; fatty oil 11 per cent; palmintic acid, 6.18 per cent; oleic acid, 60.80 per cent; d-linolic, 23.55 per cent; B-linolic acid, 2.92 per cent; capronic acid, 1 per cent; and phytosterin, 1 per cent. Bacon, examining Philippine material (D. alba), states that it contains in considerable quantity the alkaloids, hyoscine, hyoscyamine, and atropine. He says that hyoscine amounts to over 90 per cent of the total alkaloids present. In the air-dried leaves from Philippine specimens of the plant he found 0.21 per cent of total alkaloids, in the seeds 0.465 per cent, and in the wood and roots (ground up together) 0.17 per cent. He confirmed Hesse’s statements as to the properties of hyoscine in every particular. The alkaloid content of Datura metel as reported by various investigators is as follows:

More recently Marañon investigated the amount of total alkaloids in various parts of D. fastuosa and D. metel. He found that D. fastuosa contains more alkaloids in its seeds, roots, fruit, and leaves than does D. metel, but that the flowers of D. metel have a higher percentage of total alkaloids than those of D. fastuosa.

The leaves are official in the British (4s,5); Dutch (4); and Japanese (3) Pharmacopoeias; and the seeds are official in the British (4s,5) Pharmacopoeias.

Nadkarni says that the plant as a whole has narcotic, anodyne, and antispasmodic properties analogous to those of belladonna; when locally applied in a watery solution, it causes dilatation of the pupil equal to that caused by atropine solution of the strength of 1 in 120. the dried seeds are thought to be a more powerful sporific than the leaves. An overdose acts as a violent narcotic poison. This plant has long been noted for its intoxicating and narcotic properties; it produces a temporary insensibility in ordinary doses.

With regard to the toxicity of the plant, Bacon writes that in all parts of the East this plant is considered to be poisonous and in Indo-China is used quite commonly with criminal intent. In China it is often mixed with tea or a tea is prepared from the leaves which is said to taste so much like the genuine article that it can be used as a poison without exciting suspicion in the victim. The early symptoms of datura poisoning are dilatation of the pupil, drowsiness, and general weakness, often accompanied by hallucination. With medium doses recovery results in twelve to twenty-four hours, but there is usually a loss of memory and great confusion of ideas for many days afterwards. It is this effect which gives rise to the use of the drug by the Chinese for stupefying a victim whom they intend to rob. The poisoning of enemies is not a very frequent practice among the Filipinos, but toxicological work has come to the laboratory in which hyoscine was found in the stomach of the victim.

Garcia and Guevara conducted experiments on the pharmacodynamics of Datura alba and concluded the following:

1. The effects of toxic doses of Datura alba on dogs and cats correspond to those produced in man. In large doses it produces excitement, then in coordination, and lastly, depression with tendency to sleep.

2. The respiration was increased in dogs and cats after large doses, probably through stimulation of the respiratory center.

3. It dilates the pupils by peripheral action. The most probable action in this case is paralysis of the oculomotor nerve ending or its myoneural junction.

4. it stops the secretion of the submaxillary gland produced by pilocarpine. Since the glands were not paralyzed, the site of action must be either the nerve ending or the myoneural junction, which is stimulated by pilocarpine.

5. The endings of the vagus nerves are depressed by small doses and completely paralyzed by slightly larger doses. The increased heart rate, slight rise of blood pressure, and decreased pulse pressure can be explained by diminished tonus of the vagus nerves.

6. It tends to stop intestinal contraction by peripheral action, for this was obtained in isolated intestine.

7. The tentative therapeutic doses of Datura alba seeds that may be recommended for man are from 0.06 to 0.12 gram and of the fluid extract from 1 to 2 drops.

According to Guerrero the leaves are much used in resolutive and mitigant poultices. They are also smoked like stramonium in cases of dyspnoea produced by asthma. The seeds and roots have the same uses. They are sometimes used for criminal purposes. The Moros are said to intoxicate themselves with this plant before they commit their massacres. Gross says that when the leaves are dried and burned with a little saltpeter, the fumes give relief to asthmatic attacks. In the Philippines the use of Datura in the cure of asthma is becoming very popular. Cigarettes made of it are now sold in the market. Regarding asthma
cigarettes, Garcia reports that smoking has been shown to produce relief in attacks of bronchial asthma, in some cases complete relief and in others partial, but in all cases the patients claim to derive comfort. The relief is undoubtedly brought about by depression or paralysis of the receptive mechanism of the parasympathetic nerves in the bronchi (the known action of solanaceous alkaloids), and this explanation is confirmed by the relaxation produced by the alkaloidal extract from the smoke, on an isolated intercartilaginous portion of a bronchial ring previously contracted by pilocarpine. When the smoke is inhaled, it is possible that the sticky, resinous substance may help in the action by coating the mucosa and thus lessening the bronchial irritation. The presence of menthol and eucalyptus helps in the recovery by modifying the rhinitis and bronchitis that generally accompany attacks of bronchial asthma. From the manner of action given above it may be deduced that asthma cigarettes will be useful mainly in that type of bronchial asthma where the spasm is brought about by the overexcitability of the parasympathetic nerves in the bronchi, but will be more or less helpful in other types of asthma. The powdered seeds (0.01 gram), in pills or loose, are prescribed in cases of a severe cold accompanied by excessive sneezing similar to hay-fever symptoms.

Dymock, Warden, and Hooper report that in the Konkan the juice of the plant is given with fresh curds in intermittent fevers. According to Ridley the powdered roots are rubbed on the gums for toothache. The roots are also used for bites from mad dogs. Kirtikar and Basu state that the root is boiled in milk administered with clarified butter and treacle for insanity. Burkill quotes Holmes, who, editing Meldrum’s list of Johore medicines [Bull. Pharm. 6 (1892 p. 113], says that the seeds pounded in oil are used as an embrocation in rheumatism, and also are applied to syphilitic swellings and boils. Gimlette and Burkill prescribe the seeds in a very complex ointment for smallpox.

Waring states that in Datura we have an excellent, if not perfect, indigenous substitute for belladonna in the treatment of cataract and other diseases of the eye. Its mydriatic (pupil dilating) powers have been proved. A portion of a watery extract of the leaves (D. alba) is first applied around the eyes; the pupils become widely dilated and continue so for two days. Next, an alcoholic extract of the seeds of the same species in four ounces of country spirits is made; this tincture is evaporated to dryness on a water bath; and the residue is dissolved in one ounce of water. Experiments made with this solution prove beyond doubt its power of causing dilatation of the pupil when locally applied, the strength of this watery solution being, at a rough estimate, about equal to that of a four-grain (to the ounce) solution of atropine. Dymock says that the roasted leaves are applied to the eyes to give relief in ophthalmia. Waring remarks that in asthma the dried leaves and stem, cut small and smoked, like tobacco, in a pipe, afford in many cases great relief. In some the benefit is immediate and striking, in others the smoke has little effect, and in a few it acts injuriously; its value in any case can only be ascertained by personal experiment; but it is worth a trial in all cases. When the leaves fail, the dried seeds, which are thought to be more powerful, may be tried. The earlier in the attack it is employed; the greater are the chances of success; it has little effect when the attack has lasted for some hours. For a person subject to asthma, a good plan is to adopt the habit of smoking a pipe of it the last thing at night; he should keep a pipe of it already filled, with the means of lightning it, by his bedside, so that directly when an attack commences, he may use it. From ten to twenty grains of the dried plant are sufficient to commence with; they may sunsequently be increased to thirty grains but in all cases smoking should be immediately discontinued if it produces giddiness, nausea, or any other unpleasant symptom. Serious, and even fatal, consequences have followed its cautious use; hence too much care cannot be exercised in its employment. In chronic cases, where the cough takes the form of violent paroxysms and is hard and dry, with scanty expectoration, smoking Datura (ante) proves beneficial. Dymock states that the leaves are smoked along with tobacco in asthma.

Wehmer reports that for rheumatic swellings of the joints, lumbago, painful tumors, nodes, etc., Datura, locally applied, often proves most serviceable in relieving pain. He suggests four modes, in any of which it may be advantageously employed:

1. Poultice, made by bruising the fresh leaves into a pulp, and mixing them, with the aid of a little water, with an equal weight of rice flour, to the consistence of a poultice.

2. Epithem, which consists of steeping a few entire leaves in arrack or other spirit, and placing them, while wet, over the seat of pain, and securing them in that position by a bandage.

3. Fomentation, made by infusing the leaves in boiling water, in the proportion of one ounce to each pint of fluid.

4. Liniment, prepared by macerating, for seven days, one ounce of the bruised seeds in a pint of sesamum or other bland oil, and straining. In addition to the above named affections, these preparations, applied to the loins, are useful in relieving the pain attendant on painful or difficult menstruation, and in some painful affections of the uterus; in the latter, they may more advantageously be placed over the lower part of abdomen. They also prove beneficial n relieving neuralgic pains, especially of the face; for this the liniment is best adapted, well rubbed in over the seat of pan, and along the space immediately in front of the ear, or rather, in the narrow space between ears and jaw.

Nadkarni adds that the leaves are also applied as an anodyne poultice to inflamed breasts to check the inflammation and excessive secretion of milk. A paste made of turmeric and datura fruit is also a useful application in such cases. The leaves boiled in oil, or the oil itself is a good application to haemorrhoid, anal fissures, and other diseases of the rectum leading to tenesmus; an oil prepared by boiling datura seeds and sesamum oil with an alkaline water made from the ashes of Colocasia indica is used in psoriasis. The oil is also rubbed on in rheumatic and other pains of the limbs, etc., and is applied in skin diseases such as pediculi, etc. Internally the juice of the leaves is administered with curdled milk in gonorrhoea. The juice is also a popular internal remedy for the prevention of hydrophobia. Ridley quotes Gimlette, who states that the Tamils steep the leaves in spirits and use them to stimulate the growth of the hair. The leaves, heated over a torch, are applied to the spleen for intermittent fever. Gimlette and Burkill and Gimlette report that the Malays use the leaves in the treatment of boils, sores on the legs,haemorrhoids, rheumatism, swollen joints, and fishbites. Burkill says that the Malays use them for ringworm, and apply hot leaves over an enlarged spleen, and to swollen testicles. There is also a record to the effect that they are used for sorethroat and rheumatism. Sanyal and Ghose state that in earache the fresh juice of the leaves is useful, a drop or two being poured inside the ear.

According to Hooper, the flowers, digested I wine, form a tincture acting as an anaesthetic. A lotion is made from them, which reduces eruptions of the face and swellings of the feet. Menaut says that in Cambodia coconut oil is heated inside a fruit capsule and that the juice, with the oil, is squeezed into the ear.

Waring suggests a method of preparing a tincture by macerating two and a half ounces of bruised datura seeds in one pint of proof spirits and leaving them for seven days in a closed vessel, occasionally shaking it; the mixture should then be pressed, filtered, and measured, and sufficient proof spirit added to make one pint. This tincture generally produces all the sedative and narcotic effects which can be expected from opium, besides effecting a great saving, for opium is very expensive, while this tincture can be prepared at a comparatively small cost. The dose requires to be regulated in each individual case; it is better, therefore, to commence with small doses of ten or twelve drops in a little water, and to increase them to twenty or thirty drops, according to circumstances. As a general rule, twenty drops will be found to be equal in effect to one grain of opium. One of the effects of datura is to produce dilatation of the pupil; the eye should therefore be occasionally examines while this remedy is being administered.

Dymock, Warden, and Hooper report that a pill made of the pounded seeds is placed in decayed teeth to relieve toothache.

SOLANUM SANITWONGSEI Cralb
Common name: Talong-Siam (Tag.).

Talong-Siam is cultivated to a limited extent in Manila. The seeds originally came from Bangkok, Siam. Attempts are being made to grow the plant in sufficient quantity to secure fruit for chemical and pharmacological studies.

It is a half-woody herb 0.5 to 1 meter in height. The leaves are oblongovate, 5 to 9 centimeters long, 3.5 to 8 centimeters wide, blunt at the tip, heartshaped, square-shaped or pointed at the base, lobed in the margins, and hairy underneath. The flowers are bluish, on 8- to 15-millimeter stalks, and borne on racemes. The calyx is oblong-triangular, being about 4 millimeters long. The corolla lobes are oblong-lanceolate, about 8 millimeters long, and 5 millimeters wide. The fruit is yellow, smooth, somewhat rounded, and up to 1 millimeter in diameter. The seeds are compressed, pale, copiously punctulate, and 2
millimeters in diameter.

Smith, writing the Science on the control of diabetes in Siam by the use of solanaceous plants, says that the fruit has a marked effect on the sugar-content of the urine in diabetes, a disease that is quite prevalent in Siam. He continues that the discovery of the virtue of these plants was made by the late Dr. Yal S. Sanitwongse. By a process of exclusion, it was possible definitely to correlate the decrease of sugar with the ingestion of the small fruit taken with meals as a condiment. Later, the fruit was administered with the food in a number of cases of diabetes, always with marked effect, the sugar clearing up immediately and remaining absent for about twenty hours, but recurring unless the fruit was again taken. The daily use of the fruit in a very small quantity at each meal kept the sugar in abeyance and led to improvement in the general condition of the patients, without any restriction in the diet, which always comprised a large proportion of rice. Smith mentions a striking case that has come to his personal notice, that of a male European, about fifty-five years old, who had lived in Siam many years and had developed diabetes in a very severe form, with the usual loss of weight that proceeded to extreme emaciation. This man was induced to make a thorough trial of the solanaceous fruit. Beneficial results were noted immediately, so that six months after he began treatment, and without the use of any other antidiabetics nor any systematic regulation of diet, his physical condition was vastly improved, the sugar was being kept entirely in abeyance and he had added thirty pounds to his weight. During that period he had taken at each meal ten of the little fresh berries, and found that it was not necessary to increase the number, but that in all probability, the quantity might even have been reduced. The fruit produced no unpleasant gastric or intestinal symptoms. In December 1925, the use of the fruit was discontinued for about a year, and the health of the individual remained excellent. Smith then reported that sugar was usually entirely absent from the urine, and that it temporarily recurred only after some diatetic indiscretion, such as a very heavy meal of starchy or sugary food. In March, 1927, the general physical condition of the man continued to be good; there was no recurrence of the disease; and he had the satisfaction of feeling that should be diabetic symptoms reappear he had at hand a certain means of combating them. Smith continues that news of the efficacy of this fruit in diabetes has become known to the country people in several parts of Siam, and that it is reported that sufferers from the disease are now using it with success, without any medical attention or advice. It is even stated that in several districts where diabetes is common the people are employing the fruit as a preventive! In the markets of Bangkok and other communities these berries are now regularly offered for sale as food by the small vendors of miscellaneous forest and jungle produce.

In the absence of full physiological and clinical data, it would be unwise to set up large claims regarding the therapeutic value of the plant in question, but from the information on hand it would appear that in these plants we have available a cheap, easily administered substance which has a noteworthy palliative influence on the sugar content of the urine in diabetes and which may act like insulin. There is, furthermore, some evidence that under special conditions the effects may be regarded as curative.

The plant referred to by Smith has been definitely identified and described by Craib as Solanum sanitwongsei

SOLANUM CUMINGII Dunal
Solanum coagulans Blanco
Solanum sanctum F.-Vill.

Local names: Balbalusan (Ilk.); malvalusa (Ibn.); tabulak (Bang.); tabulali
(Pang.); taling-taling (Yak.); talong-talongan (Tag.); tarambulo (Tag.); turong-tiaso (Ilk.); tarangbulong-aso (Tag.); valusa (Iv.).

Talong-talongan is an endemic plant found in waste places throughout the Philippines at low and medium altitudes.

This weed is a spreading or ascending, somewhat branched, hairy herb 30 to 60 centimeters in height. The stems, petioles, and leaves are armed with scattered, sharp, rather stout spines, which are 3 to 6 millimeters long. The leaves are oblong-ovate, 4 to 12 centimeters long, pointed at the tip, inequilateral at the base and irregularly undulate-lobed in the margins. The flowers, 1 to 5, are borne in racemes in the axils of the leaves. The calyx is green, with a slightly spiny tube. The corolla is violet or purplish, rotate, shallowly 5-lobed, and nearly 2 centimeters in diameter.

According to Guerrero the leaves used in poultices are said to be mitigating and resolvent. The seeds are employed ad a sedative, and are sometimes used to cure toothache.

GMELINA ELLIPTICA Sm.
Gmelina asiatica Linn. Var. Villosa Bakh.
Gmelina villosa Roxb

Local names: Bañgana (Bag.); bohol (C. Bis.); bulbuol (P. Bis.); dankañgas (Mag.); kaluñgun (P. Bis.); puhung (Sul.); saonad (Sub.); talauan (P. Bis.); taluñgun (Sul.); tanluñgon (P. Bis.); tuluñgun (P. Bis.); tuñgolnol (P. Bis.); rais madre de Dios (Portuguese).

Taluñgud is common in thickets and secondary forest at low altitudes in Quezon Province in Luzon; and in Mindoro, Masbate, Panay, Guimaras, Negros, Cebu, Bohol, Mindanao, Basilan, and Bongao. It also occurs in Burma, through Malaya to the Moluccas and the Palau Islands.

This is a thorny, scrambling shrub or small tree growing up to 8 meters in height. The leaves are elliptic or ovate, 4 to 9 centimeters long, 2 to 6 centimeters wide, blunt or slightly pointed at both ends, woolly-felted or whitehoary on the lower surface, furnished with minute, green glands at the base, and having somewhat entire or coarsely toothed margins. The flowers are about 3.5 centimeters in length, with rather large bracts. The calyx has 5 to 6 flat, green glands on one side, and small, toothed lobes. The corolla has a bell-shaped, 4-lobed mouth, and a very narrow tube below. The fruit (drupe) is nearly round, less than 2 centimeters in width, and yellow when ripe, with watery flesh.

Burkill reports that in Malaya the plant is chiefly used in poultices for headaches and, mixed with lime, for swellings, though the leaves are used as a cathartic. In Batavia the roasted fruit is applied to an itch on the feet caused by standing in stagnant water. An infusion made from slightly crushed fruit is used as an eye-lotion. Juice from the fruit or the leaves may be dropped into the ears for earache.

According to Ridley the fruit is preserved in syrup and given in cases of consumption. The leaves, after being boiled, are also rubbed on the gums. He quotes Holmes, who says that the bark and roots are given as a demulcent and alterative.

EURYCLES AMBOINENSIS (Linn.) Lindl.
Pasoratiuma amboinense Linn.
Surycles sylvestris Salish

Local names: Abod (Bis.); abur (Bis.); dausum (Bis.); katañgal(Bis.); panabor (Bis.); taliunud (Bik.); talaonor (Bis.); tambal (Tag.); tanual (Bis.); hojas de potro, cebollas del monte (Sp.).

Tambal is found in secondary forests at a low altitude and never far from settlements; hence, it was probably introduced. It occurs in Cavite, Rizal, and Laguna Provinces in Luzon, and in Mindoro and Palawan. It is often cultivated for ornamental purposes. It occurs also from the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago to tropical Australia.

The bulbs are 5 to 10 centimeters in diameter. The leaf-blade is somewhat rounded or broadly ovate, up to 25 centimeters long and wide, with broadly cordate base, and shortly and abruptly acuminate tip. The petiole is longer than the blade, and dilated at the base. The peduncle is about as long as the leaves, bearing from 15 to 30 flowers in a dense umbel. The perianth is about 5 centimeters long, and the segments are as long as the tube.

Garter reports the presence of an alkaloid, lycorine, in the bulb. Jimenez confirms that the active principle is present in nature. The dug given by the mouth produces. Oliveros and Santos, their chemical study of the bulbs, confirmed, without doubt, the alkaloid present is lycorine.

According to Guerrero the bulbs are employed as emetothartic in small doses, and the leaves are used externally as antirheumatic topicals. Heyne states that renewed to relieve oppression and giddiness resulting from poisonous fish or crustaceans.

SOPHORA TOMENTOSA Linn.
Sophora heptaphylla Blanco

Local names: Bangil (Tag., Bis.); baraumarau (Tag., Bis.); gison (Tag., Bis.); golonaktau(Bag.); kabai-kabai (Tag.); kapon (Iv.); Kauai (Tag., Bis.); manguiau (Bik., Tag.); mantala (Tag., Bis.); olaomag (Bis.); pangalangan (Tag., Bis.); roknohan (Bis.); sandalaitan (Tag.); tambalagisa (C. Bis.); tambaleta (Tag.); tambalisa (Tag., S. L. Bis., P. Bis.); tambalisi (Tag.); tambiligisa (P. Bis.); tanbalisa(Bik.).

Tambalisa is locally abundant along the seashore throughout the Philippines. It is pantropic strand plant.

This is a gray, hairy shrub. The leaves are alternate, pinnately compound, and about 15 to 30 centimeters in length, with 11 to 17 leaflets which are oval, 2.5 to 4 centimeters in length, and extremely hairy. The flowers are bright yellow, about 1 centimeter long, and are borne on terminal racemes about 15 centimeters long. The pods are 10 to 15 centimeters in length, and contain 6 to 8 seeds. The former are very characteristic, as they are rounded where the seeds occur, while the portion between the seeds is very narrow.

The roots are yellow and the bark is bitter. The seeds are still more bitter. Watt and Breyer-Brandwijk cite the work of Gomes de Almeida (Bol. Agri. e Pecuario 1 (1931), who states that the Sophora tomentosa contains an alkaloid, sophorine, which is identical with cytisine from Cytisus laburnum and with ulexine from Ulex europaeus. Cytisine resembles nicotine in its action.

Plugge obtained from the seeds a thick, red-brown fluid which, when tested physiologically, gave results indicating that it is identical with cytisine, the alkaloid of laburnum seeds, and this indication was strengthened by the results of such chemical and spectroscopic test as were possible with the small quantity of material available. He proved that both ulexine and sophorine are identical with cytisine.

In the Philippines the plant is regarded as a common remedy for disorders of the stomach. Delgado reports that the seeds are being administered principally s febrifuge and secondly, a stomachic. The oil of the seeds is applied externally for bones which ache because of cold. It is also a good expectorant. Father Blanco quotes Father Clain, who states that only two seeds has a drastic purgative. He continuos that the Filipinos use the seeds for disorders of the stomach, and at one time used them against cholera. Guerrero says that a decoction of the root, stem, or seeds is considered as anticholeric and that the seeds are used as a purgative.

According to Correa, the plant is diuretic, sudorific, purgative, and febrifuge in small doses. The seeds are emetocathartic (dangerous) owing to the alkaloid released which is similar to cytisine.

Maiden quotes F. M. Bailey, who states that the roots and seed are specific in bilious sickness in New South Wales. Burkill cites Rumpf, who wrote that the plant was much used in eastern Malaysia as a remedy for cholera and diarrhea, and as an antidote after eating poisonous fishes and other marine animals. He also quotes Holmes [Bull. Pharm. 6 (1892) 14], who, in editing Meldrum’s list of Johore medicines, says the powdered seeds are used by the Malays as an astringent for diarrhea and adds that the leaves and roots may also be employed.

PHRAGMITES vulgaris (Lam) Trin
Arundo vulgaris Lam
Arundo phragmites Linn
Arundo tecta Blanco
Arundo donax Llanos
Phragmites communis Trin
Arundo madagascriensis F.-Vill
Neyraudia madagascriensis Mer

Local names: Bagang (Bis.); bugang (C. Bis.); lupi (Bik.); tabunak (Bis., P. Bis.); tagisi (Ibn.); tambo (Tag.); uba-uba (Sul.); tangbo (C. Bis.); tanobong (Pang., Ilk.); tantanubong (Ibn.); tanubong (Ilk.); common-reed (Eng.).

The tambo is widely distributed in the Philippines at low and medium altitudes. It is locally abundant in shallow swamps and muddy streams, and is often gregarious occupying considerable areas. It also occurs in warm countries throughout the world.

The tambo is a coarse, erect grass attaining the height of 1.5 to 3.5 meters. The stems are nearly 1 centimeter in diameter, cylindrical and hollow. The leaves are up to 50 centimeters long and 2.5 centimeters wide. The panicles are somewhat nodding, 30 to 50 centimeters long, brownish, rather dense, very many-flowered, with slender branches. The spikelets are linear and about 1 centimeter long.

Read reports that the roots contain protein 5 percent; fat 1 percent; carbohydrates 51 percent; ash 1.54 percent; asparigin 0.1 percent.

The roots are official in the French (1) and Spanish (5,6) Pharmacopoeias. The Filipinos make a peculiar type of dust broom out of the panicles. Safford reports that in Japan the young shoots are eaten cooked like asparagus or bamboo sprouts. In China the stems are commonly used for fuel. According to Hooper the root and sprouts are exported from Canton. The roots are regarded as cooling and diuretic. The tender sprouts are slightly bitter and are used as food and medicine.

SYZYGIUM JAMBOS (Linn.) Alston
Eugenia jambos Linn.
Eugenia malaccesnsis Blanco.
Jambosa vulgaris DC.

Local names: Balobar (Pamp.); bunlauan (P. Bis.); tampoi (Tag., Bik.); tanpul (Ibn.); yampoi (Bis.).

Tampoi is found in and about towns in cultivation throughout the Philippines, where it is occasionally naturalized. It is of prehistoric introduction, occurring also in Indo-Malaya generally and being cultivated in other tropical countries.

This is a small tree growing to almost 8 meters in height. The leaves are narrowly oblong or elliptic-lanceolate, 12.5 to 20 centimeters long, 2 to 4 centimeters wide, and narrowed at both ends. The flowers are large, strongly scented, greenish-white, 5 to 7 centimeters across, and borne in groups of 2 to 8 at the ends of twigs. The fruit is rounded, 3.5 to 5 centimeters in diameter, and dull yellow tinged with pink.

Tampoi is cultivated in the Philippines as a shade tree and for its edible fruit. The fruit is rather dry, somewhat sweet, and invested with faint odor of rose. It has a better flavor than makopa (Syzygium samaramgense).

Wehmer records that the bark contains tannin 12.4 per cent. Gerrard isolated an alkaloid, jambosine, from the bark. The root-bark, he says, contains the same alkaloid and oleoresin. Peckolt reports that the fruit contains dextrose 3.45 per cent, and the seeds, 3 per cent of tannin, and 0.019 per cent of gallic acid, etc.

According to Perrot and Hurrier, in Indo-China all parts of the plant are used as a digestive, a stimulant and a remedy for tooth troubles. Watt tells us that in Upper Burma the leaves are boiled and used as a medicine for sore eyes. Burkill quotes Cantley, who says that the powdered leaves may be rubbed on the body in smallpox. Their action is cooling. Menaut says that an infusion of the leaves is given for fever in Cambodia.

Heyne records that a conserve of the flowers is considered cooling. He adds that the seeds may be used, like those of duhat, for diarrhea and dysentery, and for catarrh. Standley states that the pulverized seeds are employed in El Salvador as a remedy for diabetes.

KLEINHOVIA HOSPITA Linn.
Kleinhovia serrata Blanco
Grewia meyeniana Walp.

Local names: Apung-apung (Sul.); balansi (Mang.); bantana (P. Bis.); bignon (Ilk); biknong (Ilk.); biluan (P. Bis.); binong (Ilk.); bitanag (C. Bis., Mbo.); bitnong (Ilk.); hamitanago (Bik.); lapuis (C. Bis.); marakapas (Ilk.); pampas (Ilk.); panampat (Pamp.); taag (Tag.); tagnag (Chab.); tamanag (Bag., Mag.); tan-ag (Tag., Bik., S.L. Bis.); tanak (Tag.); tangag (Tag.); toloktok (Ilk.); unapong (Sul.).

Tan-ag is a characteristic tree growing in thickets, second-growth forests, and deserted clearings at low and medium altitudes throughout the Philippines. It also occurs in India to tropical Africa and Malaya.

It grows from 8 to 15 meters in height. The leaves are broadly ovate, and 10 to 20 centimeters long, with pointed tip, and heart-shaped base. The flowers are pink, about 8 millimeters long, and borne in panicles 20 to 40 centimeters long, terminating the branches. The fruit is a thin-walled, inflated capsule about 2 centimeters long.

The young leaves are eaten as a green. The bast fiber is widely used for tying bundles. It is also made into rope which is used for tethering carabaos and horses, and for making halters. The rope is said to be durable during rainy weather. Brown reports that in Marinduque the bark is used to poison eels.

In the Philippines, according to Blanco and Guerrero, a decoction of the leaves is said to be antiscabious.
Burkill reports that the bark and leaves are poisonous and are used in Malaya as a hair-wash to destroy lice. In eastern Malaysia the juice of the leaves is regarded as a good eye-wash.

SOLANUM TORVUM Sev.

Local names: Balbalusa (Bon.); batuang (Ig.); dagutung (Sul.); gambol(Sub.); talampoi (Tag.); talimbolo (Tag.); talongon (Tag.); talong-talongan (Tag.); talunkia (Sul.); tandang-aso (Tag.); taogotan (P. Bis).

Tandang-aso is found occurring in open, waste places at low and medium altitudes in most islands and provinces. The forms with white flowers are perhaps typical. It is now pantropic in distribution.

This weed is a coarse, erect, branched, half-woody herb 1 to 3 meters in height. The branches are covered with short, scattered spines, and in most parts with stellate hairs. The leaves are ovate to oblong-ovate and 10 to 20 centimeters long, with sinuate-lobed margins, and pointed tip. The flowers are white, many, about 1 centimeter long, and borne on lateral and usually extraaxillary inflorescences. The fruit is yellow, smooth, rounded, and about 1 centimeter in diameter.

According to Burkill the fruit is eaten in curries, both by the Malays and by others in many marts of Malaysia. It is preferred unripe. Ochse says that the fruit makes a very good flavoring. Burkill and Haniff state that the root is medicinal for poulticing cracks in the feet.

In the Philippines the fresh leaves are pulped and used as sedative and maturative poultices. In Yucatan, according to Martinez, the plant is said to possess narcotic, diuretic, sudoirific and resolutive properties, and is administered for convulsions, coughs, asthma, gout, rheumatism, syphilis, and diseases of the skin.

Dalziel reports that a decoction of the fruit is used in Sierra Leone as a cough medicine for children.

CERIOPS TAGAL (Perr.) C. B. Bob.
Rhizophora tagal Perr.
Rhizophora timoriensis DC.
Ceriops candolleana Arn.
Rhizophora candel Blanco

Local names: Ligasen (Tag.); magtoñgod (P. Bis.); pakat (Tagb.); roñgon (Sbl.); ruñgon (Sbl.); tagasa (Tag.); tañgag (S. L. Bis.); tangal (Tag., Tagb., Bag., Bis., Pang., Sul.); tañgal-lalaki (Tag.); tanghal (Tag., P. Bis.); tigasan (Tag.); tonggi (Kuy.); toñgog (Bag., S. L. Bis.); toñgong (sub.); tuñngod (P. Bis., C. Bis.); tuñgog (P. Bis.); tuñgud (Sul.).

Tangal is found abundantly in mangrove swamps throughout the Philippines. It also occurs in India to Malaya. This is a small tree growing to 8 meters or less in height, with many buttresses at the base. The bark is dark red. The leaves are ovate, 5 to 7.5 centimeters long, 2 to 5 centimeters wide, blunt at the tip, and pointed at the base. The flowers are about 6 millimeters in length and are borne on short stalks. The calyx lobes are linear, with pointed tips. The petals are five, and smooth; tips are flat or notched, with three or four club-shaped appendages. The stamens are ten. The fruit is small, club-shaped or subovoid, and surrounded near the base by the reflexed segments of the calyx.

According to Kirtikar and Basu, the whole of the plant abounds in an astringent principle. A decoction of the bark is used to stop hemorrhages, and is applied to malignant ulcers. On the African Coast, a decoction of the shoots is used as a substitute for quinine. Heyne states that the Malays give a decoction of the bark to women in childbirth. Chopra says that the bark is used in India as a haemostatic.

RICINUS COMMUNIS Linn.

Local names: Katana (Iv., Bon.); gatlaoua (If.); lansina (Tag.); lingang-sina(Tag.); tangan-tangan (Tag., Bik.); tangan-tangan-hawa (Sul.); taoa-taoa (Ilk.); tauataua (Ilk.); taua-taua-sina (Ilk.); castor oil plant (Eng.).

Tangan-tangan is found in open waste places near settled areas throughout the Philippines. It is of prehistoric introduction, and is a native of the Old World. It is pantropic in distribution.

This is a coarse, erect, branched, smooth, somewhat woody bush, 1 to 4 meters high. The younger parts are glaucous, and the vegetative parts and inflorescences are green or purplish. The leaves are smooth, alternate, palmately divided, and 20 to 60 centimeters in width, the lobes being oblong and toothed. The racemes are stout and erect. The male flowers are about 1 centimeter in diameter. The capsules are ovoid, 1 to 1.5 centimeters long, green or purplish, and covered with soft spinelike processes.

Tangan-tangan or the castor oil plant is the source of the castor oil commerce. It grows wild in all parts of the Philippines, but the seeds are said to be poor in oil. Imported and improved varieties are also grown but on a rather limited scale. According to Brown, castor oil is probably best known for its medicinal properties on account of its wide use as a purgative. However, only a comparatively small amount of high-grade oil is used for medicinal purposes. The chief use of the castor oil is as a lubricant for internal combustion engines, particularly aero-engines. For this purpose it is particularly suitable owing to its high viscosity, which is retained at high temperatures, and to its property of not solidifying at low temperatures. Castor oil is insoluble in light petroleum and other mineral oils. However, when heated to about 300°C. for several hours, it polymerizes and becomes soluble in mineral oils. It can then be used for making compound lubricating oils.

Castor oil is used somewhat extensively for manufacturing Turkey red oil for the dyeing industry. Castor oil is also used in the manufacture of so called “rubber substitute”.

Castor oil is seldom used alone for the manufacture of soap, as it requires large quantities of brine for salting out. However, it has the property of making soap transparent, and is therefore employed in the manufacture of transparent soaps.

Castor oil is also used in the making of “cognac oil”, in a dressing for leather, in “fat-liquoring” in the leather industry, in the manufacture of artificial leather, as an illuminant, in the manufacture of cutting oils and of linoleum, and as a wool oil.

Brown quotes Bottler and Sabi, who state that castor oil is used as an ingredient for “artificial skin” varnishes, such as one composed of shellac, 1 part; alcohol, 3 parts; castor oil, 1/5 part; or another having 8 parts collodion to 1 part castor oil. It is also used in retouching-varnishes and in the negative varnishes of photography. To give elasticity to spirit varnishes, it is thinned with alcohol to the consistency of the varnish, and added to it. Castor oil seeds contain the enzyme, lipase, which splits fatty oils into glycerine and free fatty acids. Splitting of fats into these two substances represents the first stage of soap manufacture.

The cake that is left after the castor oil is extracted from the kernels of castor seeds contains the poisonous constituents, ricin, of the castor seed. The cake, therefore, is not suitable for feeding to animals, nut is used as a fertilizer. Used as manure in southern India, it is said to contain 6.37 percent nitrogen, 2.55 percent phosphoric acid, 0.96 percent potash. In addition to being used for manure, it is also employed as fuel, for caulking timber, for the destruction of white ants (termites) and other pests, and for stuffing the soles of native shoes.

Wehmer compiled all the available literature on Ricinus communis: The kernel yields from 49 to 85 percent of fixed oil. The active principles are ricin and an alkaloid, ricinine.

According to Watt and Breyer-Brandwijk, the entire seed is a very active poison on account of the presence of a toxalbumin, ricin. This principle, which is not present in castor oil, is nonpoisonous when taken by the mouth. On subcutaneous injection it is highly toxic, producing, after latent period (often several days) with no symptoms, loss of appetite, diarrhea and vomiting. Post-mortem gastro-enteritis and haemorrhagic effusions into cavities and organs are found. Ricin is said to depress the medullary centers, particularly the vasomotor and respiratory centers. An alkaloid, ricinine, has also been isolated from the seed, but appears to be nontoxic.

The leaves are official in the Portuguese (3) Pharmacopoeia; the seeds are official in the Austrian (1,3-5); Croatico-Slavonican (1); Danish (1,2); Finnish (1); French (1-5); Hungarian (1); Italian (1-3); Mexican (1-4); Portuguese (1-3); Serbian (1); Spanish (1-4); and Swedish (2-5) Pharmacopoeias; the oil is official in the Argentine (1); Austrian (1-8); Belgian (1-3); British (1-5); Chilean (1,2); Croatico-Slavonican (1,2); Danish (1-7); Dutch (1-4); Finnish (1-5); French (1-5); German (1-5); Greek (1-3); Hungarian (1-3); Japanese (1-3); Mexican (1-4); Norwegian (1-4); Portuguese (1-3); Romanian (1-3); Russian (1-6); Serbian (1,2); Spanish (1,7); Swedish (1-9); Swiss (1-4); United States (1-10); and Venezuelan (1,2) Pharmacopoeias.

According to Guerrero and Delgado the entire, fresh leaves are used externally for headache. Guerrero adds that, cooked with milk, they are employed in poultices for certain kind of ulcers. The seeds are purgative and are regarded as antirheumatic.

The Zulus also apply a paste of the root for toothache. The root-bark is purgative, and effective in skin diseases and burns. In Southern Rhodesia the bark is used by natives asa dressing for wounds and sores. Watt and Breyer-Brandwijk state that an infusion of the leaves is a Zulu remedy for stomachache. It is administered orally or as an enema. The leaf has been applied to the head to relieve headache, and is commonly used as a poultice for boils. They quote Burtt-Davy [Transvaal Agric. Jour. 3 (1905) 277], who mentions that the foliage is emmenagogue, and the leaf is useful as a local application in rheumatism. Stuart says that the leaves are applied to swellings as a discutient remedy, and are given internally as a tussic and expectorant. Caius reports that in French Guiana the leaves are boiled and used as a febrifuge. Bentley and Trimen and Waring record that the leaves have been also recommended in the form of a decoction or poultice, as an application to the breast of women to increase the secretion of milk. The decoction has also been reputed to act as a lactagogue and emmenagogue when administered internally.

The Chinese use the crushed seeds as medicine more frequently than they do the oil, and paste is applied to relieve scrofulous sore. The Transvaal Sutos apply the powdered, roasted seeds to sores, boils, etc., in children. The pulp is rubbed into the temples in headache, into the palms of the hands in palsy, is introduced into the urethra in stricture, and is rubbed into the soles of the feet of parturient women to hasten the birth of the child or the expulsion of the placenta. It is stuffed into deaf ears, rubbed over the top of the head in cases of prolapsus uteri, and is applied to burns and scalds. The seeds are chewed in scrofula, and the pulp is used in a variety of skin affections, dogbite and wherever a lubricant is needed. The seeds of the castor oil plant are poisonous. They act as a powerful drastic.

The castor oil is a mild purgative, being efficient and adaptable to infants and young children. It is one of the safest and most reliable purgatives for the relief of obstinate constipation. The oil is very suitable for patients suffering from piles and fissure of the anus. It is a valuable drug in diarrhoea caused by indigestible food, removing irritating matter from the bowels and later soothing the intestinal mucosa. For the same reason it is a valuable remedy for acute dysentery and should be prescribed at the very outset of the disease, in divided doses. Atss Turbat in Markan the oil is used as an ointment for sores.

Ratner and Gruehl report that pomace (castor bean dust, a product of castor oil factories) was a specific source of asthma among individuals inhaling it. They assume that individuals exposed to pomace in large amounts might develop acute ricin poisoning. They conclude that castor bean dust is a congestin, an anaphylactogenic.

MYRISTICA SIMIARUM A. DC.
Myristica discolo Merr

Local names: Anuping (Sul.); duguan (C. Bis.); lupau (Ilk.); paria (Tag.); pokipok (Ilk.); tambalau (Tag.); tanghas (Tag.).

Tanghas is an endemic species found in forests at low and medium altitudes in Cagayan, Ilocos Norte, La Union, Bataan, Laguna, Quezon, and Camarines Provinces in Luzon; and in Samar; Leyte; and Mindanao.

It is a small tree. The leaves are alternate, leathery, sulphur yellow on the lower surface when dry, smooth, oblong or ovately so, about 15 centimeters long and 5 to 7 centimeters wide, with pointed tip, and rather obtuse base, upon 2-centimeters long petioles. The inflorescences are lateral or axillary, up to 3 centimeters long. The flowers are hairy, ovately, elongated, borne upon 3-millimeter long pedicels, and clustered toward the distal ends. The fruit is subglobose, about 3 centimeters long smooth when old, with a very blunt, apical point, usually created longitudinally, with a relatively thin exocarp, which is yellow when mature. The seeds are subglobose.

The seeds contain oil, which Filipinos consider to be medicinal. Itches and similar skin diseases can be easily cured by the application of the oil or even the pulp of the bark.

FICUS VARIEGATA Blume
Ficus laevigata Blanco
Ficus latsomi Elm

Local names: Agi (Yak.); banakal(Bag.); basikong (Bag.); duoyog (P. Bis.); dudang (sul.); dudu (Ig.); laptai (Tag.); lapting (Ilk.); ligtug (Bon.); lita (Ibn.); payakan (Sbl.); rayaraya (Tag.); tabgon (Bik.); tangisang bayawak (Sbl., Tag.); tubol (Pang.).

Tangisang-bayauak is common in primary forests at low and medium altitudes from Cagayan to Sorsogon in Luzon, in Palawan, and in Mindanao. It also occurs in the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago and in southern China.

It is a tall, spreading tree, with pale bark. The leaves are broadly or ellipticovate, 10 to 17 centimeters long, the base rounded, notched or heart-shaped and the tip tapering to a point, with the margins entire, subexpanded or toothed. The receptacles are about 1 centimeter in diameter, red when ripe, and are clustered on long branches.

In Java Ochse states that the young shoot-tips and the young fruits are eaten raw or cooked. In the Philippines the fresh leaves are applied as topical in boils. Burkill reports that in Malaya, the bark, which is said to be sweet, is chewed, or used in a decoction for dysentery. The latex of the bark is also used as a coat over wounds.

ANDROPOGON CITRATUS DC
Andropogon schoenanthus Blanco
Cymbopogon Citratus Stap

Local names: Balioko (Bis.); barani (Ilk); paja de meca (Sp.); zacate limon (Sp.); tanglad (Tag., Bik., Bis.); salai (Tag.); sai ( Mbo., Mand., Sulu); salaid (Tag.); lemon-grass, sweet-rush, ginger rush (Eng.)

The tanglad is planted here and there about houses in most or all parts of the Philippines for its fragrant leaves, but nowhere is it spontaneous. This grass is cultivated commercially in Java, India and Ceylon. It is a native of tropical Asia and is widely distributed in cultivation.

It is tufted and perennial. The leaves are up to 1 meter in length, 1 to 1.4 centimeters wide, scabrous, flat, long-acuminate, glabrous. The panicles are 30 to 80 centimeters long, interrupted below; the branches and branchlets somewhat nodding. The perfect spikelets are linear-lanceolate, pointed, not awned and about 6 millimeters long.

Distillation of the fresh plant yields lemon-grass oil, verbana oil and Indian Molissa oil. These oils have a reddish yellow color and intense odor and taste of lemons. Lemon-grass oil is used in making perfumes, especially ionone (synthetic essence of violets). According to Brown lemon-grass consists largely of citrical and contains also small quantities of various substances such as methyl heptenone, and the terpenes, limonene and dipentene. The exact value of the oil depends chiefly upon the amount of citral it contains. High grade oils contain about 70 to 80 percent of citral. Citral is an aldehyde which occurs not only in lemon-grass oil but also in lemon oil (the oil obtained from lemon peel) and in many other natural essential oils.

The leaves are official in the Mexican (1-4) Pharmacopoeia. The volatile oil is official in the French (3); Dutch (4,5); and Indian Add. Bacon reports that the leaves are cooked with stale fish to improve the taste. They are used as a flavor in wines and various sauces and spices. The roots, which have a ginger-lilac flavor, are used as a condiment and for perfuming hair-washes of gogo. Ochse reports that in Java the plant is used in spicing sherbet.

Father Alzina as early as 1668, reported the use of the decoction of the roots, hot, for toothaches. According to Guerrero the roots yield a decoction used as a diuretic. The leaves are employed for aromatic baths. Bacon adds that the leaves are applied to the forehead and face as a cure for headaches, and infusion is held in the mouth to alleviate toothaches. Rumpf credits this grass with medicinal powers. He says that it is wholesome to the digestion, acts as a mild diuretic, promotes perspiration, and serves as emmenagogue. It has been used in the bath and in fomentations.

According to Nadkarni the plant is generally used in the form of an infusion (4 ozs. of the grass to 1 pint of boiling water). It is an excellent stomachic for children; with ginger; sugar and cinnamon, it is given as a diaphoretic in fevers; with black pepper it is useful in disordered menstruation and in the congestive and neuralgic forms of dysmenorrhea, and also in dropsical condition caused by chronic malaria. It is carminative and tonic to the intestinal mucous membrane, useful in cases of vomiting and diarrhea. The oil is useful in flatulent and spasmodic affections of the bowels and in gastric irritability, and is of great value in cholera as it allays and arrests vomiting and aids the process of reaction. Mixed with an equal quantity of pure coconut oil it makes a liniment for lumbago, chronic rheumatism, neuralgia, sprains, and other painful affections; it is also a helpful application for ringworm. A tea made from the leaves is used as a stomachic tonic, a diuretic, and a refrigerant.

Kirtikar and Basu speak highly of the oil as a stimulant and diaphoretic when taken internally. In India, they add, the oil is a famous remedy for cholera.

CHRYSANTHEMUM CORONARIUM Linn.

Local names: tung hao (Chinese); tañgo (Tag.); crown daisy (Engl.).

Tañgo is cultivated by the Chinese gardeners in Manila, and in Baguio by the Chinese and Japanese. It is also reported to occur in Europe to Southeast Asia.

This vegetable is an erect, smooth, somewhat fleshy, slightly aromatic, branched, annual herb 30 to 90 centimeters in height. The leaves are alternate auricled and clasping at the base, oblong to lanceolate, 10 centimeters long or less, and bipinnately parted, the lobes are narrow, entire or toothed, and thick. The flowering heads, which terminate the branched, are solitary, long-peduncled, yellow, and 2 to 3.5 centimeters in diameter.

Tañgo is grown as a leafy vegetable. The plants are gathered while young. They have a rather spicy taste and are much used for “gulay” and as a condiment in “pansit Luglog”. Analyses of the young leaves and tops show that they are good sources of phosphorus and calcium and very high in iron. Read reports vitamin C in the leaves. According to Yoshimura the fresh young plant contains adenine 0.15 per
cent and traces of choline.

Stuart says that while tañgo is not considered at all poisonous, its excessive use is said to result in a species of intoxication. Its action is considered to be sedative, and it is throughout to benefit the digestive and vital functions.

Dymock quotes Dr. Walker [Bombay Med. And Pays. Trans. (1840) 71], who says that the people of the Deccan administer the plant in conjunction with black pepper in gonorrhea.

According to Dymock the chewed root communicates the same tingling sensation to the tongue as pellitory. Caius states that the bark is considered by the Yunanists as a purgative useful in syphilis. He also says that the Yunanists apply the leaves topically to lessen inflammation.

Dymock reports that the flowers, when dried, give a peculiar, prickling sensation to the tongue, like pyrethrum. He quotes Dalziel and Gibson (Bombay Flora II, 48), who state that they are a tolerable substitute for chamomile.

SOLIDAGO VIRGAUREA Linn.

Local names: Tantanduk (Ig.); golden rod, woundwort (Engl.); var de oro (Sp.).

Tantanduk is found only in Bontoc and Benguet Subprovinces in Luzon, an open grassy slopes and in thin pine forest, at an altitude of from 1,400 to 2,100 meters. It occurs also in the North Temperate Zone in both hemispheres, extending southward along the mountains through Japan to southern China and Formosa.

This herb is perennial, and smooth or hairy, with erect, stout, subsimple stems 15 to 60 centimeters in height. The lower leaves are ovate or lanceolate, and 3.5 to 7 centimeters long, with pointed tip and the base prolonged into a petiole, and with margins somewhat toothed; the upper ones are small, narrower, and entire as to margins. The heads occur to our on short axillary peduncles collected in along leafy panicle. The involucral bracts are narrow and pointed.

According to Wehmer the plant contains saponin. Kirtikar and Basu record that the plant yields a volatile oil.

The flowers are official in the Danish (1); French (1,3); and Spanish (2-4) Pharmacopoeias.

The medicinal properties of the plant are apparently unknown to the Filipinos.

According to Caius the plant is aromatic, stimulant, and carminative. It is astringent and diuretic, and efficacious for stone in the bladder. In powder form, it is used for cicatrization of the old ulcers. It has been recommended for many maladies, as it is a good diaphoretic in warm infusion, and in this form is also helpful for dysmenorrhea and amenorrhea. Kirtikar and Basu report that the plant is esteemed as a vulnerary. It is reported to have been used very successfully by Dr. Mascarel in cases of dropsy. He reduces the dried plant – stems, leaves, and flowers – to a coarse powder, and gives it in doses of one tablespoonful, beaten with an entire egg (yolk and white). He gives but one dose on the first day; but on each of the following days he adds another dose, until seven or eight doses are taken every twenty-four hours. The diuresis is said to continue until edema permanently disappears.

COLDENIA PROCUMBENS Linn.

Local names: Oreganong-lalaki (Tag.); papait-ti-nuang (Ilk.); tabatabokol (Ilk.); tapiasin (Tag.).

Tapiasan is found in Cagayan, La Union, Pangasinan, Zambales, Pampanga, and Rizal Provinces in Luzon; and in Mindanao, in dry open places, fallow rice paddies, etc., at low and medium altitudes. It is common locally, and is now pantropic.

This is an annual, hairy herb. The branches are procumbent, spreading flat on the ground, and growing as long as 25 centimeters. The leaves are elliptic to oblong-obovate and 1.5 to 2.5 centimeters long, with coarsely toothed margins, blunt tip, and are very unequal base. The flowers are white and small, and borne in the axils of the leaves. The sepals are four, narrow, and very hairy, with ovate segments. The corolla tube is short, with four lobes which are imbricate in bud. The fruit is conical, and 3 to 4 millimeters in diameter, and contains four 1-seeded pyrenes.

According to Guerrero, in the Philippines the leaves are applied as poultices to mature abscesses. The dried leaves when pulverized, provoke sneezing. Kirtikar and Basu report that in India the fresh leaves ground up are applied to rheumatic swellings.

CAPPARIS SEPIARIA Linn.

Local names: Arayat (Ilk.); keme-keming (Ilk.) tarabtab (Tag.).

Tarabtab is found from the Babuyan Islands and northern Luzon to Mindanao and Sulu Archipelago in thickets at low altitudes. It has also been reported in India to Malaya and Australia.

This plant is a woody vine growing from 1.5 to 3 meters in height. The young branches are hairy. The spines are short, sharp, and recurved. The leaves are oblong-ovate to elliptic-ovate, 2 to 8 centimeters long, with a shallow notch at the tip. The flowers are grouped 5 to 15 in axillary and terminal, sessile or shortpeduncled umbels, with the slender pedicels 1 to 1.5 centimeters long. The sepals are green, and concave. The petals are oblong white, and 7 to 8 millimeters long. The fruit is rounded 8 to 10 millimeters in diameter, nearly black when mature, and one seeded.

According to Caius and Kirtikar and Basu the plant possesses febrifugal properties, and is considered to be alterative and tonic. It has been found useful also in skin diseases.

SOLANUM FEROX Linn.
Solanum lasiocarpum Dunal
Solanum zeilanicum Blanc

Local names: Balbalusangi (Ilk.); basula (Ibn.); dabutung (Sul.); dagutung(Sul.); kamadaka (Iv.); tagatum (P. Bis.); talong-ayam (Bik.); talong-gubat (Tag.); talong-talong (Tag.); tarambola (Tag.); tarong-tarong (S. L. Bis.); tarambulo(Tag.); tagutong (Bis.).

Tarambulo is found throughout the Philippines in waste places, old clearings, etc., at low and medium altitudes, ascending to 2,000 meters. It also occurs in India to southern China and Malaya.

This weed is a small, suberect, prickly, hairy herb 0.5 to 1.5 meters in height the leaves are ovate, 15 to 20 centimeters long, 12 to 23 centimeters wide, lobed at the margins, and densely covered with stiff woolly hairs above and woolly hairs and prickly spines on the nerves beneath; the lobes are triangular, and 2.5 to 4 centimeters deep. The flowers are borne on lateral racemes. The calyx is shortly funnel-shaped, with ovate- triangular lobes. The corolla is densely woolly without white, oblong-lobed, and 2 to 2.5 centimeters in length. The fruit (berry) is yellow, rounded, 2.5 to 3.5 centimeters in diameter, densely covered with needlike hairs, and many-seeded.

According to Burkill the fruit is very widely used as a sour-relish in curries in India, Siam, and Malaysia. It is more acid toward ripeness.

In the Philippines the leaves are used as poultices for swellings.

Burkill reports that a decoction of the roots is prescribed to give relief when there are violent pains all over the body and discomfort after meals. Burkill and Haniff mention a decoction taken for syphilis. They say that the roots are used externally in a bath for fever at night, and, in a poultice, for itches, cuts, wounds, and severe bruises.

Burkill states that the seeds are used for treating toothache; they are burned and the fumes inhaled.

LIMNOPHILA INDICA (Linn.) Druce
Hottonia indica Linn.
Limnophila gratioloides R. Br.
Limnophila myriophylloides Llanos
Limnophila sessiliflora Merr. & Rolfe

Local name: Tara-tara (Ilk.).

Tara-tara is found in Cagayan, Ilocos Norte, Bontoc, Benguet, Pangasinan, Nueva Ecija, Rizal, and Laguna Provinces in Luzon; in Leyte; and in Bukidnon, Davao, and Lanao Provinces in Mindanao in shallow, slow streams at low and medium altitudes, ascending to 1,500 meters. It occurs also in India to Japan and through Malaya to tropical Australia.

This is a small, gregarious, smooth, submerged or partly submerged, aquatic herb 10 to 20 centimeters in height, and exceedingly variable in its vegetative characters. The stems are slender, erect, simple, or diffusely branched. The leaves are whorls, pinnatifid, and 6 to 18 millimeters long. The leaves under water are opposite. The flowers are pale purple or pale violet, and borne singly in the axils of the leaves. The calyx is 3 to 4 millimeters long, rarely larger, and hemispheric in fruit, with ovate lobes. The corolla is 10 to 12 millimeters long.

Chopra reports that the plant contains an essential oil.

In the Philippines Guerrero reports that an infusion of the leaves is used for dysentery and dyspepsia.

According to Kirtikar and Basu and Nadkarni the plant is antiseptic in action. The odor of the fresh plant is agreeable and resembles that of camphor or oil of lemons. The juice of the plant is rubbed over the body in pestilent fevers. A liniment is made from the plant with coconut oil and used in elephantiasis. Internally the juice is given in dysentery combined with cumin and other aromatics.

GRAMMATOPHYLLUM SCRIPTUM (Linn.) Blume.
Epidendrum scriptum Linn.
Cymbidium scriptum Sw.
Vanda sripta Spreng.
Gabertia sripta gaudich.
Grammatophyllum speciosum Lindl.
Ophrys cernua Blanco
Grammatophyllum multiflorum Lindl.
Grammatophyllum multiflorum Lindl. Var. triginum Lindl.
Grammatophyllum fenzlianum Reichb. F.
Grammatophyllum rumphianum Miq.
Grammatophyllum boweri F. v. Muell.
Grammatophyllum leopardinum Reichb. f.
Grammatophyllum measuresianum Weathers
Grammatophyllum seegerianum Hort.
Grammatophyllum fenzlianum Reichb. f. var. measuresianum Veitch
Grammatophyllum guilelmi-secundi Kranzl.
Grammatophyllum scriptum (Linn.) Blume var. boweri Schltr.

Local name: Tawa-tawa (Tag.).

Tawa-tawa is widely distributed throughout the Philippines from sea level to an altitude of 500 meters. It occurs also in Amboina, Ternate, Celebes, Borneo, and New Guinea.

This is an epiphytic orchid, which is varible in size. The pseudobulbs are stout, ovoid or fusiform, terete, and 12 to 20 centimeters long. The leaves are oblanceolate, oblong, and 20 to 40 centimeters long. The racemes with the peduncle are 0.6 to 1.5 meters long, spreading, and nodding or pendulous. The flowers are numerous, each being 5 to 8 centimeters across. The sepals and petals are obovate-oblong, yellowish-green, and covered with large, reddishbrown blotches. The lip is three-lobed, and yellow with purple nerves. The column is incurved. The anther is orbicular and hairy, and the pollinia subglobose.

We owe our knowledge of the medicinal virtues of this orchid to Burkill, who, quoting Rumpf, states that in Amboina a paste of the pseudobulb is put on sores or applied to the stomach to expel worms and malignant tumors; and that, macerated, the orchid is used for treating aphthe, ad as a diet for dysentery.

DESMODIUM HETERROCARPUM (Linn.) DC.
Hedysarum heterocarpum Linn.
Hedysarum polycarpon Poir.
Desmodium polycarpum DC.
Meibornia polycarpa O. Kuntze.

Local names: Huyop (If.); huyo-huyop (If.); mangkit-parang (Tag.); manimani (P. Bis.); mani-manian (Tag.); mangkanod (Mbo.); tagkgik (Mbo.); timbalau (Bag.).

Tayam is commonly found from northern Luzon to Mindanao in thickets, open grasslands etc., at low and medium altitudes. It also occurs in tropical Africa and Asia through Malaya to Australia and Polynesia.

This erect or suberect undershrub, with woody, slightly angular, slender branches, clothed upwards with short, addressed, grey hairs. The leaves are pinnate. The leaflets are green, hairy above and thinly clothed with addressed hairs beneath; the end one is obovate-oblong, being 2.5 to 7.5 centimeters in length; and the sides ones are smaller. The racemes are terminal and lateral, 2.5 to 7.5 centimeters in length. The pods are 1.2 to 1.9 centimeters long.

Burkill quotes Alvins, who says that the roots, boiled, are used for poulticing sore breast. Burkill continues that a decoction of the plant is drunk fro coughs, being regarded as a tonic. Heyne says that the roots and leaves are medical in weat Java for women’s complaints. Chopra and Basu state that the Santals use perennial plant in fainting and convulsions.

INDIGOFERA SUFFRUTICOSA Miller.
Indigofera anal Linn.
Indigofera argentea Blanco

Local names: Pauai (Iv.); tagum (S. L. Bis.); tagun (P. Bis.); tayom (Ilk); tayon (Ilk.); tayum (Ilk., P. Bis., Tag., C. Bis.); yagum (Bis.).

Tayum is found in waste places in and about towns, locally abundant and occasionally cultivated, from Batan Islands and northern Luzon to Mindanao. It is pantropic in distribution.

This is an erect, branched, half-woody plant, 1 meter or less in height. The stems are sparsely covered with short, appressed hairs. The leaves are 5 to 8 centimeters long. The leaflets are 9 to 11, oblong to oblong-elliptic, 1 to 2 centimeters in length, pale, and appressed hairy beneath. The flowers are red, about 5 millimeters long, and borne on axillary and solitary racemes 2 to 3 centimeters in length. The pods are numerous, crowded, reflexed, strongly curved, and 1 to 1.5 centimeters long, and contain from 6 to 8 seeds.

This species is one of the sources of natural indigo, and along with Indigifolera tinctoria, represents the chief indigo of commerce. Burkill states that it is cultivated as green manure in Malaya and Java. Dalziel reports that it is used as a perennial cover crop for coffee.

According to Holland, in French Guinea the bruised leaves are used as an anodyne in warms baths; in decoction they are a powerful sudorific. The roots and leaves are infused in rum for destroying vermin.

Standley reports that the Aztecs use the seeds for urinary diseases and for ulcers; the leaves, as a poultice applied to the head to reduce fever; and the whole plant, as a remedy for syphilis. Febrifuge, vulnerary, purgative, antispasmodic, diuretic, and stomachic properties have been attribute to the plant, and it is a favorite local remedy for epilepsy. In Brazil it is one of the reputed remedies for snake bites, and in the United States indigo is often applied to the stings of bees and other insects. The powdered seeds or a decoction of the root is said to be efficient in destroying vermin upon the human body. Martinez states that in Mexico, the leaves as a cataplasm or in decoction are applied to the forehead of children with fever and to any painful area. The seeds in powder form are a cure for ulcers. Indigo is considered antispasmodic, and a cure for epilepsy

THEA SINENSIS Linn.
Thea chinensis Sims
Camelia theifera Griff.
Camellia thea Link
Camellia sinensis O. Kuntz

Local names: Tea (Engl.); tsa (Tag.)

Tea is occasionally planted about Baguio, Benguet, in Luzon. It was introduced shortly before 1905. The plant is a shrub a meter or more in height. The branches are smooth and the buds are silky. The leaves are elliptic-oblong, 7.5 to 20 centimeters long, 3.5 to 6 centimeters wide, tapering at either end, and with toothed margins. The flowers are white, about 3 centimeters in diameter. The fruit is leathery, 3-celled capsule, each cell containing a seed. The seeds are nearly spherical, obtusely angled, smooth, pale brown, and about 2 centimeters in diameter.

According to Brown, tea is not produced in the Philippines, but scattered plants are grown in Baguio where they do well. Tea grows excellently on tropical mountains where there is fertile soil and abundant rain, so there is reason to believe that it would grow well on various Philippines mountains.

Read records that the leaves contain caffeine 3 percent; adenine; xanthine; hypoxanthine; theophyline; choline; quei-citrin; guanylic acid; tannin 9.5 percent; ash 6 percent; Mn; Cu.; Mg; Fl.; vitamins C4, E2, G2, A; catechin; diastase; oxydase; and fluorides.

The leaves are official in the Austrian (5-8); Croatico-Slavonican (2); French (1-5); Greek (1s-3); Hungarian (1); Mexican (1-4); Portuguese (3); Servian (2); Spanish (2-7) and Venezuelan (1, 2) Pharmacopoeias.

Wehmer records the complete chemical composition of the leaves. According to Burkill, the natural scent of tea is due to the presence of a fragrant volatile oil about which little is know. Caffeine and theobromine, and very small quantities of other alkaloids, have been found in tea, their stimulant action being the reason for the use of this beverage to relieve fatigue. The fixed oil from the seeds is sometimes used in making margarine and is entirely free from saponins. The residual cake contains saponin and, when made up into little round balls, isan object of trade among the Chinese, who use it in washing hair.

TECTONA GRANDIS Linn. f.

Local names: Dalanang (P. Bis.); dalandon (Bis.); dati (Sul.); djati (Sul.); hadlayati (Mbo.); hati (Sul.); kalayati (Bis.); sagunyat (Bis.); teca (Sp.); tekla (Tag.); yati (Chab., Sul.); teak (Engl.).

Tekla, or teak, is planted in various parts of the Philippines, especially in the Sulu Archipelago and in parts of Mindanao, and is now established in the southern part of the Archipelago. There is a tree in Tanay, Rizal Province, Luzon, from which Blanco secured specimens before 1837 and which still exists there.

This is an erect, large, deciduous tree growing up to 20 meters or more in height. The branchlets are 4-angled. The leaves are large, elliptic or obovate, 20 to 30 centimeters in length, pointed at both ends, usually wedge-shaped at the base, and entire at the margins; the upper surface is rough, but without hairs, and the lower is densely covered with gray or yellowish hairs. The flowers are numerous, short-stalked, and arranged in large, terminal, much-branched panicles 30 to 80 centimeters in length. The calyx is small, board, bell-shaped, and covered with stellate hairs, with subequal and spreading lobes. The whole calyx is ultimately enlarged, reaching 2.5 centimeters in length or more and forming a membranous, bladelike covering to the fruit. The corolla is white, and smooth, and less than 1 centimeter across, with subequal and spreading lobes.The fruit is somewhat rounded, about 1.3 centimeters in diameter, and somewhat 4-lobed, the soft pericarp densely clothed with felted, stellate hairs.

Hubert describes the histology of the leaves and petioles.

Romanis reports that the heart-wood contains a resin, tectoquinone (C18H16O2). Dymock, Warden, and Hooper quote Abel [Chem. Soc. Quart. Journ. 15 (1845) 91], who showed that teak wood frequently exhibits cracks and cavities of considerable extent lines with a white crystalline deposit consisting chiefly of hydrocalcic orthophosphate, Ca H PO4, H2O, with about 11.4 per cent of ammonio-magnesium phosphate. They say that the formation of this deposit indicates that the wood itself must contain a considerable quantity of phosphoric acid, and analysis shows this to be really the case, for the ash of teakwood is composed of the following: CaO, 31.35 per cent; MgO, 9.74 per cent; FeO, 0.80 per cent; K2O,1.47 per cent; Na2O, 0.04 per cent; SiO2, 24.98 per cent; SO3, 2.22 per cent; P2O5, 29.69 per cent; CO2, 0.01 per cent; and Cl, 0.01 per cent. The per centage of carbon and hydrogen is higher that in most woods, and this, together with its richness in calcium phosphate and silica, may perhaps account for the great hardness of teak. The powder, examined under the microscope, was mainly in an amorphous condition similar to prepared chalk, with a darkcolored gummy matter and a small quantity of crystalline quartz sand. The following is the composition” calcium carbonate, 70.05 per cent; tricalcic orthophosphate, 2.89 per cent; quartz sand, 9.76 per cent; organic matter, 14.30 per cent; moisture, 3.00 per cent.

Burkill reports that the leaves contain 6 per cent of tannin dry weight.

Teak is well-known for its excellent wood. It is used for ship-building, for furniture-making, and other fine work, and for fishing boats. Heyne says that the root-bark is used in Celebes for a yellowish-brown coloring matter. The young leaves are similarly used for dyeing in several parts of the Dutch Indies.

In the Philippines a decoction of the fresh or dried leaves is prescribed for menstrual disorders and for hemorrhages in general. Guerrero reports that the leaves, either fresh or dried, are used in decoction as an excellent remedy for heamoptysis. The same decoction taken as a gargle is said to cure sore throat.

Dymock reports that the Hindus recommend a plaster of the powdered wood in bilious headaches, and for the dispersion of inflammatory swellings; taken internally in doses of 90 to 200 grains it is said to be beneficial in dyspepsia with burning pain in the stomach arising from an overflow of bile, and also as a vermifuge. The charred wood, quenched in Poppy juice and reduced to a smooth paste, is applied to swellings of the eyelids, and is thought to strengthen the sight. The bark is used as an astringent. The powdered wood made into a paste with water is undoubtedly a useful application in acute dermatitis, especially that due to contact with the caustic oleoresin of Anacardium occidentale.

Bocquillon-Limousin and Nadkarni report that, according to Cleland, carpenters sometimes suffer from dermatitis through handling sawdust of the lumber from this tree.

Dymock and Hubert quote Endlicher, who states that the flowers are diuretic; this is confirmed by Gibson, who says that the seeds have a similar property; in two cases he saw marked duiresis following the application of an epithem of the bruised fruit to the pubes.

Dymock adds that the oil of the nuts, which is thick and has an agreeable odor, is used for making the hair grow, and soothing itchiness of the skin.

CALLICARPA CANA Linn.
Callicarpa bicolor Schauer

Local names: Alalui (C. Bis.); alayo-ti-manok (Pang.); anobrang (Ilk.); anuyup (Ibn., Ilk.); palis (Tag.); papalsis (Tag.); tambalasi (Tag.); tambulbasi (Sul.); tigau (Bik., Bis., Tag.); tigau-na-itim (Tag.); tubing-dalag (Tag.).

Tigau is found in thickets and secondary forest at low altitudes from northern Luzon to Palawan and Mindanao, in most or all islands and provinces. It also occurs in the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago to the Biskmarck Archipelago, and Peninsula and in the Marianne, Caroline, and Palau Islands.

This plant is a shrub 2 to 4 meters in height. The young branches, inflorescences, petioles, and lower surface of the leaves are densely covered with short, grayish or whitish, stellately arranged hairs. The leaves are oblongovate, 6 to 14 centimeters long, 2.5 to 5 centimeters wide, sharply toothed at the margin, and pointed at both ends. The cymes are short-stalked, borne in the axils of the leaves, and 2 to 4 centimeters long. The flowers are pale purplish or lavender, and about 3 millimeters long. The fruit is fleshy, pale lavender, rounded and 4 to 6 millimeters in diameter.

In the Philippines the leaves are pounded and used as a fish-poison, particularly for “dalag” (mud fish). The fruit is said to be poisonous to chickens.

The Filipinos say that the leaves, if smoked, relieve the breathing in cases of asthma. They apply the fresh leaves externally as a plaster for gastralgia.

According to Nadkarni, in India the decocted root is given in cases of fever and also to remove herpatic obstructions; it is also given for skin diseases, and is used as a wash for aphthae in the mouth. Burkill report that in Malaya a decoction is used for bringing on the menses, and the leaves are used for poulticing wounds and boils. Hubert says that the uses of this plant are similar to those of Callicarpa Americana. Specifically, the leaves, infused, are utilized as a depurative.

CORDYLINE ROXBURGHIANA (Schultes) Merr.
Sansevieria roxburghiana Schultes
Sansevieria zeylanica Roxb.
Cordyline hyacinthoides W.F. Wight

Local names; Aspi-aspi (Pamp.); baniat (Is.); dildila (Ilk.); kakarohai (Ibn.); pakarohai (Ibn.); rabo de leon (Sp.); rabo de tigre (Sp.); sigre (Is.); tigre (Sp., Tag.); bowstring hemp (Eng.).

Tigre is often cultivated, though in many regions of the Philippines it is neutralized, occurring in thickets and hedges at low and medium altitudes. It is a native of tropical Asia, now pantropic is cultivation.

The rootstock is very stout, branching, and stoloniferous. The stem is very short. The leaves are erect, fleshy, fibrous, flat (in other varieties cylindrical or concave above, and rounded dorsally), suberect, dagger-shaped, rigid, pale green, with transverse bands of dark green, or dark green with gray mottles, 0.4 to 1.5 meters long, 4 to 7 centimeters wide. The scape is erect, 30 to 80 centimeters long. The flowers, in fascicles of 3 to 6, are numerous, pale-strawcolored, and sweet-scented, 2.5 to 3 centimeters long, with the perianth segments nearly twice as long as the tube. The fruit, which is sparingly produced, is globose, about 8 millimeters in diameter. The seeds are broadly ovoid, and white, with horny albumen.

From the leaves of tigre are obtained strong fibers, which are sometimes mixed with piña locally. From the fibers of the leaves, bowstring, cordage, cloth, and paper are made.

Chopra reports that the plant contains, besides other components, an active constituent: an alkaloid, sansevierine.

According to Guerrero the leaves, when roasted, are used as an emollient. Kirtikar and Basu declare that the rootstocks are prescribed as a cough medicine in India. The juice of the tender shoots is administered to children to clear their throats of viscid phlegm. Chopra adds that it is used as a purgative, a tonic, and a febrifuge in India.

CANNA INDICA Linn.
Canna orientalis Rosc.

Local names: Balunsaying (Bis.); bangali (Bik.); kakuentasan (Tag.); kiuingam (If.); kolintasan (Bis.); kuentas-kuentasan (Tag.); lasa (Iv.); sagingsaging (Tag.); tapuranga (Bis.); tikas (Tag.) tikas-tikas (Tag.,P., Bis.); tikis-tikis(Tag.); tukas-tukas (Tag.); plantanillo (Sp.); Indian bread shot (Engl.).

Tikas is found throughout the Philippines in settled areas, occurring in waste places in and near settlements. It is a native of tropical America, and is now pantropic in distribution.

The rootstock is tuberous, and stout. The whole plant is green and smooth, and grows up to 1.5 meters high. The leaves are lanceolate or ovate, 10 to 30 centimeters long, 10 to 20 centimeters wide. The inflorescence is somewhat wary-glaucous, erect, with a peduncle about 30 centimeters long. The flowers are red, solitary or in pairs, and the bracts are about 1.3 centimeters long. The sepals are 1 to 1.5 centimeters long, greenish-white though sometimes tinged with red, and lanceolate or oblong. The corolla tube is about 1 centimeter long, the involute lobes being red or reddish, 2.5 to 3 centimeters long. The staminodes are bright red, the outer one being about 4 centimeters long, somewhat spatulate, acute, or slightly acuminate, and the others somewhat smaller, though the antheriferous one is as long as the outer one, about 5 centimeters wide, and recurved above the insertion of the anther. The capsule is green, oblong-ovoid, softly echinate, and 2 to 2.5 centimeters long. The seeds are about the size of a pea, somewhat spherical, with shinning and black testa.

According to Nadkarni the rhizomes consist of fat, traces of an alkaloid, gum, and starch.

Kirtikar and Basu and the Nadkarni add that the rhizomes are diuretic, diaphoretic and demulcent; while the seeds are cordial and vulnerary. A decoction of the rhizomes is used in fevers, dropsy and dyspepsia. Dury and Kirtikar and Basu quote Fleming, who considers the roots as acrid and stimulant.

In the Philippines Guerrero reports that the rhizome in decoction is used as a diuretic, and when macerated in water is said to alleviate nosebleed.

Pittier reports that in Costs Rica the leaves in infusion are diuretic and the rhizomes are used as emollient.

SCIRPUS LACUSTRIS Linn.

Local name: Tiker (Ilk.).

Tiker is found in fresh-water swamps, from sea level to 1,300 meters altitude in Luzon (Cagayan, Zambales, Benguet). It is also found in most warm countries except Malaya and South America.

The rhizomes are horizontal. The stems are stout, 45 to 120 centimeters tall, often standing in water. The leaves vary greatly in size, some being hardly discernible, others growing to 10 centimeters. The umbels are usually once or twice divided, 10 to 15 centimeters in diameter, and sometimes reduced almost to a small head. The spikelets are clustered and solitary, 10 to 12 millimeters long. The glumes are ovate. The bristles are as long as the nut or reduced. The nuts are obovoid, smooth and black.

According to Caius the rhizomes is used as an astringent and as a diuretic. Scirpus maritimus has a similar use in China.

SCIRPUS GROSSUS Linn. f.
Cyperus difformis Blanco
Scirpus kysoor Roxb.
Scirpus grossus Linn. f. var. kysoor (Roxb.) C.B. Clarke
Schoenoplectus grossus Palla

Local names: Agas (Bik.); baga-ás (p. Bis.); baki-báki (P. Bis.), balaklak(Pag.); balañgot (P. Bis.); bangkúang (Bik.); ragiudiu (Bik.); tikúg (Mbo.), tikiu(Tag.), titiu (Tag.)

Tikiu is found from central Luzon to Mindanao in most islands and provinces, in fresh-water swamps, and in newly opened rice lands at low altitudes. It also occurs in India to Indo-China and Malaya.

Tikiu is a very coarse, large, erect, glabrous aquatic or marshy herb. The stems are triangular, 1.5 to 2 meters high or more. The leaves are few, basal, often half as long as the stem, 1 to 2 centimeters wide, the leaflike bracts subtending the inflorescence, spreading, broad, 30 to 60 centimeters long. The inflorescence is corymbose, and 10 to 18 centimeters long. The spikelets are very numerous, brown, ovoid, and 5 to 8 millimeters long. The nuts are obovoid, trigonous, dark brown or black, and shining.

According to Kirtikar and Basu, Nadkarni, and Caius the root has astringent properties, and is given to check diarrhea and vomiting. Caius describes the root as slightly sweet, cooling, laxative, tonic to the liver, effective against infection and poison, diuretic, and useful in burning sensations, fevers, and gonorrhea.

SAGITTARIA SAGITTAEFOLIA Linn.
Alisma sagittifolium Llanos

Local names: Gauai-gauaia (S.L. Bis.); tikog (Bik.).

This aquatic plant is found in fresh water swamps, rice paddies, etc at low and medium altitudes in Luzon (Pangansinan, Nueva Ecija, Tayabas, Camarines, Albay and Sorsogon Provinces); and in Catanduanes, Samar, Leyte and Mindanao (Lanao). It also occurs in Europe through Asia to Japan and Southward to Java.

The plant is erect and stemless, usually perennial. The leaves are arrowshaped, 10 to 35 centimeters long; the petioles are long, often longer than the leaves, with 3 to 5 whorls of 3 to 5 flowers, each 1 to 2 centimeter in diameter; the lower whorls are female, and the upper, male, with longer pedicels. The petals are white, with yellow center. Achenes are flat, obliquely obovate, apiculate with broad wings.

This plant produces tubers, which are edible. In China and Japan a variety with starchy tubers is cultivated in rice paddies and along small streams; the same form is now cultivated in Trinidad Valley.

According to Stuart the plant is somewhat acrid. He states that the ingestion of the tubers in the raw (cold) state is considered to be deleterious, producing fluxes, weakness and hemorrhoids. Pregnant women should not eat them. They are recommended in deficient lochiaa, and in retention of the placenta, as well as in gravel. The bruised leaves are applied to foul sores and to snake and insect bites, and as a powder are used to relieve itching. Chopra adds that the tuber is used for skin diseases. Crevost and Petélot say that in IndoChina the Chinese use the rhizome, grated with vinegar, as a poultice for boils and abscesses. The rhizome in decoction is also used for dog and snake bites. The leaves, mashed with molasses, are used in soreness of the throat or tongue and in inflammation of the breast.

ARISTOLOCHIA TAGALA Cham.
Aristolochia subsagittata Blanco
Aristolochia indica Blanco
Aristolochia roxburghiana Klotz.

Local names: Altan (Tag.); gaan-gaan (Bis.);kamkamaulau(Ig.); malaubi(Tag.); nagerus (Ilk.); parolparulan (Tag.); talatalarum (Tag.); taoin-taoin (Ilk.); timbangan (Tag.); timbang-timbangan (Tag.).

Timbangan is found throughout the Philippines in thickets at low and medium altitudes. It occurs also in India to Malaya.

The plant is twining, half-woody, nearly smooth vine. The leaves are ovate to oblong-ovate, with tapering pointed tip, and prominent heart-shaped base. The flowers are borne in axillary recemes, 3 to 3.5 centimeters long, with purplish, rather slender perianths; the base of each flower is inflated but narrows into a curved tube; and the tip opens up into a large and oblique mouth. The capsule is pendulous, ovoid, obovoid, or oblong-obovoid, and 2 to 4 centimeters long, with a long stipe.

According to Guerrero the powdered roots are said to be tonic, carminative, and emmenagogue, and a very efficient remedy for infantile tympanites if they are pulverized and applied to the abdomen. He adds that the root probably contains the alkaloid, aristoloquin, reported from Aristolochia indica. Chopra states that it is used in India in bowel complaints.

INIDGOFERA TINCTORIA Linn.

Local names: Anil (Sp.); dagum (Sub.); tagung-tagung (C. Bis.); tagum (Bis.); taiom (Ilk.); taium (Tag.); taiong-taiungan (Bik.); taium (Iv.); taiung (Pamp.); tina-tinaan(Tag.); tugum (Bik.).

Tina-tinaan is found in the Bataan Islands and northern Luzon to Mindanao, in waste places in and about towns at low and medium altitudes. It is sometimes cultivated in the Philippines. The plant is pantropic in distribution.

This is an erect, slightly hairy shrub, 1 to 1.5 meters in height. The leaves are 6 to 10 centimeters long, and compound, with 9 to 13 leaflets which are obovate-oblong and 1.5 to 2.5 centimeters in length. The flowers are small, reddish or reddish yellow, and are borne on rather lax racemes 2 to 6 centimeters long. The pods are spreading or reflexed, straight or nearly so, and 2 to 3 centimeters long, and contain 8 to 12 seeds.

The plant yields a valuable dye-stuff called indigo. According to Nadkarni, indican (a glucoside), the oxidized form of Luc indigo or indigo-white, is the product obtained from the fermentation of the fresh green plant. The oxidized product-chiefly indigotin or Indigo-blue which settles to the bottom is collected, washed, pressed into cakes 3 to 3 ½ inches square, and finally dried. The yield of indigo is as much as 50 percent.
Indigotin is insoluble in water, alcohol, and dilute acids; it is soluble in strong sulphuric acid, forming a sulphate of indigo called “extract of indigo”.

The decoction of the root is given in calculus. An infusion of the root is given as an antidote in cases of poisoning by arsenic.

According to Nadkarni, the plant is stimulant, alterative, deobstruent, and purgative. Indigo is antiseptic and astringent. The juice of the leaves of the plant, and indigo in powder form have been used mixed with honey for enlargement of the liver and spleen, epilepsy, and other nervous affections. In hydrophobia two ounces of fresh juice with an equal quantity of milk are given in the morning for 3 days, as a prophylactic; they may produce a slight headache but nothing beyond that. In larger doses this mixture causes purging.The juice is also applied to the part bitten, or the bruised leaves are applied as a poultice. The juice is also given in asthma, in whooping cough, in palpitation of the heart, and in some lung diseases and kidney complaints such as dropsy. Dey states that the leaves and indigo have been used in hepatitis, epilepsy, and other nervous affections.

Nadkarni reports that the powdered indigo is also used for sprinkling on ulcers. Indigo is applied to reduce swellings in the body, to relieve the bites and stings of venomous insects and reptiles, and also to sooth burns and scalds. It is applied, mixed with castor oil, to the navels of children to promote the actions of the bowels; and, mixed with warm water, to the pubes and hypogastrium, as it is said to stimulate the bladder and is therefore useful in cases of retention of urine.

ECLIPTA ALBA (Linn.) Hassk.
Anthemis cotula Blanco.
Artemisia viridis Blanco
Eclipta erecta Linn.
Elipta parciflora Wall.
Elipta Philippinensis Gandog.
Verbesina alba Linn.

Local names: Higis-manok (Tag.); karimouaya (Ilk.); pia (If.); tinta-tinta (Ilk.); tultulisan (Ilk.); vayod (Iv.); verba de tajo (Sp.).

Tinta-tinta is an ubiquitous weed in the settled areas of the Philippines, and is found in all warm countries. It is a decumbent, spreading, or sometimes suberect, annual herb with bristly hairs. The stems are rather slender, usually reddish, and up to 40 centimeters or more in length. The leaves are linear-oblong to lanceolate, 1 to 5 centimeters long, without petioles, entire or slightly toothed, and pointed or blunt at the tip. The flowering heads are white, ovoid, 5 to 6 millimeters long, and about 5 millimeters in diameter. The achenes are black, about 3 millimeters long, and smooth or slightly hairy at the tip.

According to Heyne the leaves are cooked and eaten in Java. Dymock, Warden, and Hooper report that the juice of the plant is used in tatooing to communicate a blue color to the punctures, and it is stated in Hindu works that when taken internally and applied externally, it will dye the hair black.

Nadkarni records that the plant contains a large amount of resin and an alkaloid ecliptine.

Guerrero states that in the Philippines the leaves and tops, brewed in decoction, are used in cases of hepatitis. Pounded, they are employed for healing wounds.

The plant is principally used in Bombay as a tonic and as a deobstruent in hepatic and splenic enlargements, as well as for various chronic skin diseases. The fresh plant is applied with sesamum oil in elephantiasis, and the expressed juice is taken internally in affections of the liver and in dropsy. When used in large doses, it acts as an emetic. It is also considered cooling. It is anodyne and absorbent, and relieves headache when applied with a little oil. The plant is pounded in Java, and applied externally for ringworm. In the Antilles the plant is applied as a cataplasm or topical for cut wounds, for it is a good cicatrizant. The plant is considered an astringent in China, and is used for checking hemorrhages and fluxes and for strengthening the gums. The plant is rubbed on the gums for toothache, acting as a counterirritant. A decoction of the plant is used in Malaya for colic. The plant is much used as a cure for asthma and bronchitis in IndoChina and in Brazil. In Ceylon it is used to purify the blood. In La Reunion the
plant is considered as pectoral and antiasthmatic. A decoction is prescribed externally for skin diseases and elephantiasis. In the Gujrat district of the Punjab it is used externally for ulcers. A decoction of the plant is useful for arthritis.

The root mixed with salt is given to relieve scalding of urine. In Chota Nagpur it is applied in conjunctivitis. The root has purgative and emetic properties. It has been recommended as an excellent substitute for the root of Taraxacum in hepatic derangements. Among the Malays a decoction of the roots is not uncommonly given to women after childbirth.

A decoction of the leaves is used in uterine hemorrhages (2 to 4 ounces daily). In Assam the leaves if applied to sores are reputed to cure them. The juice of the leaves is generally given in one teaspoonful doses against jaundice and fevers. The pounded leaves are prescribed in hemorrhages. In the Gold Coast the leaves are ground and mixed with cold water; this mixture is then drunk to cure constipation. The leaves are used in Brazil as a remedy for diarrhea and as a black stain for the hair. The leaves are pounded in Malaya, mixed with coconut oil, and applied to the hair to make it grow. In India the fresh fruit juice of the leaves is rubbed on the shaven scalp for the purpose of promoting the growth of hair. The leaves are used as a vulnerary in Indo-China.

DOLICHANDRONE SPATHACEA (Linn.F.) K. Schum.
Bignonia longissima Lour.
Bignonia spathacea Linn. f.
Dolichandrone longissima K. Schum.
Dolichandrone rheedii Seem.
Spathodea luzonica Blanco
Spathodea rheedii Wall.

Local names: Pata (Ilk.); tangas (Tagb.); tanhas (C. Bis.); tanghas (P. Bis.); tewi (Mbo.); tiwi (Tag., Bik., Bis.); tua (Tag.); tui (Tag.).

Tiwi is found along the seashore and tidal streams from La Union Province (Luzon) to Palawan, Mindanao, and the Sulu Archipelago. It also occurs in India, through Malaya to New Guinea.

This smooth tree grows from 5 to 15 meters in height. The leaves are opposite, 30 to 40 centimeters long, and pinnately compound with seven to nine leaflets. The leaflets are ovate to ovate-lanceolate or ovate-elliptic, 7 to 15 centimeters long, unequal at the base, and pointed at the tip. The flowers are borne on short, terminal, few-flowered racemes. The calyx is 4 to 5 centimeters long, spathelike, and split down one side to the base. The corolla is white, with a rather slender, cylindrical or slightly compressed, 30 to 40 centimeters long, and 2 to 2.5 centimeters think, with very numerous, rectangular, winged seeds.

In the Philippines a poultice of the fresh leaves and bark is applied against flatulence to women after childbirth. Guerrero reports that the seeds are administered in the form of a powder, generally for nervous complaints.

Heyne says that the leaves are used in Java for making a mouth-wash for thrush.

Waddell quotes Dymock, who notes that this small tree has the reputation of being able to procure abortion. The bark, it is also stated, is used as a fish poison. Dymock, however found no ill effects following the administration of a considerable quantity of a decoction of the bark to a small dog

TRIANTHEMA PORTULACASTRUM Linn.
Trianthema monogyma Linn.
Portulaca toston Blanco
Portulaca axilliflora Blanco

Local names: Ayam (Bis.); toston (Tag.); ulisuman (P. Bis.).

Toston is a weed common throughout the Philippines at low and medium altitudes, and is locally abundant in recently disturbed soil. It is pantropic in distribution.

This weed is a smooth or nearly smooth, prostate, somewhat succulent herb, with branches up to 60 centimeters in length, with tapering rounded base, and apiculate apex. The flowers are axillary, solitary and stalkless, with pink, overlapping, oblong, mucronate calyx-lobes, and are 4 to 5 millimeters in length. The capsule is truncate and 5 to 6 millimeters long. The seeds number about 10, and are small, black and kidney-shaped.

The plant is eaten as a leafy vegetable. Marañon reports that it is a good source of calcium and iron and is an excellent source of phosphorus. Nadkarni says that it is also eaten as a vegetable in India. Dalziel states that in the Gold Coast it is eaten as spinach.

Nadkarni reports that the root contains a glucoside similar in properties to saponin and that the root, when fresh, is sweet. Kirtikar and Basu on the other hand, record that the roots are bitter and nauseous.

According to Guerrero a decoction of the roots is administered as an emmenagogue and as an abortive when taken in large doses. Nadkarni reports that the root is cathartic when given in powder with ginger, and is irritant. Chopra adds that it is abortifacient and used in ammenorrhoea. Nadkarni continues that as an infusion it is given in constipation, jaundice, strangury and dropsy, and is also used in turpid liver, and asthma. In the Gold Coast, according to Dalziel the plant is applied as a dressing or poultice. Kirtikar and Basu and Waddell describe the root as cathartic.

TRICHODESMA INDICUM (Linn.) R. Br.
Borago indica Linn.

Trichodesma indicum is found in the Philippines only in Rizal, Quezon, and Laguna Provinces in Luzon, as a weed in cultivated grounds, especially in peanut plantations. It also occurs in Persia, India, and Mauritius.

This is an erect, spreading, branched, annual herb, about 50 centimeters in height, with hairs springing from tubercles. The leaves are stalkless, opposite, lanceolate, 2 to 8 centimeters long, pointed at the tip, and heart-shaped at the base. The flowers occur singly in the axils of the leaves. The calyx is green, hairy, and 1 to 13 centimeters long, with pointed lobes. The corolla is pale blue, with the limb about 1.5 centimeters in diameter, and the lobes pointed. The fruit is ellipsoid, and is enclosed by the calyx. The nutlets are about 5 millimeters long, and rough on the inner surface.

According to Guerrero this species is used in the Philippines in the same mannee as Trichodesma zeylanicum.

Kirtikar and Basu report that the leaves and the roots are esteemed as a remedy for snake bites; and also considered diuretic. A cold infusion of the leaves is considered depurative. In the Deccan the plant is used as an emollient poultice. In Chutia Nagpur the root, pounded and made into a paste, is applied to reduce swellings.

HELIOTROPIUM INDICUM Linn.
Heliophytum indicum A. DC.
Heliotropium parviflorum Blanco.
Tiaridium indicum Lehm.

Trompa ng elepante is a common weed in settled areas throughout the Philippines at low altitudes. It is pantropic in distribution.

This is an annual, erect, branched, hairy plant 15 to 50 centimeters in height. The leaves are opposite or alternate, ovate to ovate-oblong, 3 to 8 centimeters long, somewhat hairy, pointed at the tip, and widest near the rounded or heart-shaped base, and grown down along the petiole. The flowers are small, and borne on one side of curved, terminal, or leaf-opposed spikes which are 3 to 8 centimeters in length. The calyx is green. The corolla is pale lavender to nearly white, funnel-shaped, and about 5 millimeters long, with a slender and cylindric tube and the limb 3.5 millimeters in diameter. The fruit is 4 to 5 millimeters long, and is composed of 2, ovoid, beaked nutlets.

Dymock, Warden, and Hooper record that the stems and leaves, besides containing a tannin soluble in ether which afforded a dirty-green coloration with ferric chloride, and an organic acid (noncrystalline, also soluble in ether), gave very marked evidence of the presence of an alkaloidal principle which was soluble in ether and yielded marked precipitates with the ordinary alkaloidal reagents; however, with potassic chromate it afforded no precipitate and gave no special color reactions. It was tasteless.

The leaves are official in the Venezuelan (1) Pharmacopoeia. Sanyal and Ghose remark that the leaves act as an emollient. They also say that the drug causes contraction of muscular fibers, mucus membranes, and other tissues. Kirtikar and Basu state that the plant also has diuretic properties.

In the Philippines a decoction of the dried roots taken internally is considered an excellent emmenagogue. A few seeds masticated and eaten are said to be good stomachic. Guerrero states that a tea made from the leaves is used for bathing cuts and sores; also for the treatment of cholera. The leaves are applied to wounds and boils. The leaves in decoction are used as a pectoral and as antiscaboius. The sap of the leaves, mixed with salt, is said to be useful for clearing the vision. The plant is said to be also used for ear and skin diseases.

The juice of the leaves is used as an application to wounds and sore, to boils and gum-boils, and to pimples on the face. It also employed locally in that kind of ophthalmia in which the tarsus is inflamed or excoriated. The leaves crushed, are used as a resolvent for abscesses and furuncles in Costa Rica. Both Bocquillon-Limousin and Sanyal and Ghose quote Dr. Amadeo, who says that repeated gargles with a decoction of the leaves and flowers of the plant, besides one wine-glass of the same remedy given internally every 2 hours, are a reputed cure for sore throat (pharyngitis and tonsilitis).

Meanut says that in Indo-China a decoction of the leaves is used against urticaria. The flowers, in small doses, are emmenagogue, but in large doses, they are abortive. The leaves are used for poulticing herpes and rheumatism. Perrot and Hurrier report that the Sino-Annamites use the plant against beri-beri.

Martinez reports that in Mexico a decoction of the roots or any part of the plant is good for coughs and asthma.

Dalziel quotes Baillon, who states that in Liberia, where the plant is known as the “erysipelas plant,” it is used as a local application for the condition named.

Local names: Gasi (Sul.); kamagsa (Bik.); kamaisa (Tag.); kamandag(Bis.); kamausa (Tag.); kasla (Sul.); lutung-sira (Bik.); makaisa (Tag.); makasla(P.Bis.); malapai (Sul.); saligao (Ilk., Ibn.); tuba (Ilk., Bik., Tag., S.L. Bis., P. Bis., Sul.); tuba-tuba (Bik., P. Bis.); tubang-kamaisa (Tag.); tubang-makaisa (Bik., Tag.); tubang-pasiti (Bik.); tubli (C. Bis.); tukbu (If.); croton oil plant, croton, purging croton (Eng.).

Tuba is found in and about towns, usually planted, throughout the Philippines, and in some places is naturalized. It is of prehistoric introduction from Malaya, and is universally used for poisoning fish. It also occurs in India to New Guinea.

This is an erect or more or less spreading shrub or very small tree. The leaves are alternate, ovate, 7 to 12 centimeters in length, usually somewhat rounded at the base, pointed at the tip, and toothed at the margins. The flowers are very small, and are borne on terminal inflorescences, with the female flowers situated toward the base of each inflorescence. The capsule is ellipsoid or obscurely three-angled, is 1.5 to 2 centimeters long, and contains a single seed. The seeds are ovoid or oblong, 12 to 15 millimeters in length, and three angled; the testa is dark brown or blackish; the endocarp is thin and brittle and of a faint odor; the albumen and embryo are yellowish. The seeds are at first mild in taste, and subsequently acrid and pungent.

Read reports that the roots contain tannin, 65 percent. Wehmer records the following constituents: The seeds have fixed oil (croton oil), 30-45 per cent, containing croton globulin and croton albumin, arginine and lysine; alkaloid ricinine (which is toxic); lipase; invertase, amylase, raffinase; proteolytic enzyme, croton resin, tiglic acid, croton oleic acid, stearic, palmitic, myristic, lauric, oenanthrallic, capronic valerianic, butyric, isobutyric, acetic and formic acids; tannin, 65 per cent. According to Lewkowitsch, the seeds yield 53 to 56 per cent of croton oil. The oil has a yellow, orange or brown color, according to its age. It has a nauseous odor, a burning taste, and acts as a very powerful purgative. It dissolves in petroleum ether in all proportions, differing in this respect from castor oil. It has the following constants:

The seeds are official in the Austrian (5); Belgian (1,2); Dutch (1,4); Finnish (5) Italian (1); French (1-5); Russian (1-3); Portuguese (3); and Swedish (6-9) Pharmacopoeias.

The oil is official in the Argentine (1); Austrian (5-8); Belgian (1-3); Chilean (1); British (1-5); Croatico-Slavonican (1-2); Danish (3-7); Dutch (1-4); Finnish (1-5); French (1-5); Greek (1-3); German (1-5); Hungarian (1-3); Italian (1-3); Japanese (1-3); Mexican (1-4); Norwegian (1-4); Portuguese (2,3); Romanian (1-4); United States (1-10); and Venezuelan (1,2) Pharmacopoeias.

The roots, leaves, bark, and seeds possess drastic purgative properties. The bruised root is applied to carbuncles and cancerous sores. The testa is recommended only for fluxes. The bark is used as a tonic in Annam.

In the Philippines, according to Guerrero, the seed and the oil extracted from them are violently drastic, and are used as revulsives in cases of rheumatism and coughs. The plant is also used to poison fish.

Gimlette reports that the roots are finely shredded, mixed with water and drunk by Javanese women and in Kelantan as an abortifacient. The seeds are poisonous and a powerful, drastic purgative. Bentley and Trimen state that a diluted tincture of croton seeds is used as a stimulant and application in certain cutaneous affections, more especially in eczema, ichtyosis, and erythema. The seeds, half-roasted over a lamp or candle flame while the smoke is inhaled through the nostrils relieve a fit of asthma.

Croton oil when rubbed on the skin, acts as a rubefacient and counterirritant. Internally it operates as a powerful hydragogue, a catharthic and a drastic purgative producing in large doses, severe purging, collapse and death. A liniment acts as a useful stimulant when applied in chronic rheumatism, neuralgia, glandular and other indolent swellings, and chronic bronchitis and other pulmonary affections. The property of croton oil as a vesicant externally, and a purgative internally, is attributed to the presence of croton oleic acid. The oil is useful in dropsy, obstinate constipation, intestinal obstructions, and lead poisoning; as a preliminary laxative in leprosy; and as a revulsive in apoplexy. As a blister it is applied to the scalp in acute cerebral diseases, to the cord in spinal meningitis, to the chest in chronic bronchitis and to the throat in laryngitis. In lockjaw and mania it is of great advantage; a few drops placed at the base of the tongue will produce catharsis.

Waddell quotes Dr. S. N. Ridley, who states that croton poisoning may be distinguished from ptomaine poisoning by the following particulars: - First in croton poisoning pain is felt at the back of the throat, which comes on some time after the poison has been swallowed. Pain also is felt at the anus. Second, croton poisoning is immediately relieved by a dose of bismuth, which is not the case with ptomaine poisoning.

According to Gimlette the leaves are one of the constituents of the Batak arrow poison. The Arbor arrow poison of the northeast frontier of Assam is a paste believed to be made by pounding the soft parts of croton tiglium.

The ripe pounded fruit is used in Java and by the Dayaks in Borneo to poison fish. In the Philippines, the fruit or crushed leaves of this species are used in poisoning fish. When the seeds are used for this purpose they are pulverized and put in sacks, which are placed in ponds or rivers.

JATROPHA CURCAS Linn.

Local names: Galumbang (Pamp.); kasla (Bis.); kirisol (Tag.); taba-taba(Tag.); tagumbau (Ilk.); tagumbau-na-purau (Ilk.); takumbau (Sbl.); tangantangan-tuba (Tag.); taua-taua (Ilk., Ig.); tauua (Ilk.); tuba (Ig., Bik.,Tag.); tubangbakod (Tag.); physic nut tree, purging nut tree, big purge nut (Engl.).

Tubang-bakod is found throughout the Philippines and is usually very common in and about towns. It was introduced at an early date in colonial history from Mexico, and is now pantropic in distribution.

This is a smooth, erect, branched shrub 2 to 5 meters in height. The leaves are entire, angular or somewhat three- to five- lobed, orbicular-ovate, and 10 to 18 centimeters long; the apex is pointed and the base heart-shaped. The petioles are long. The flowers are greenish or greenish white, 7 to 8 millimeters in diameter, and borne on axillary cymes. The capsules are at first fleshy but later become dry, are rounded and are composed of two or three one-seeded divisions which are 3 to 4 centimeters long.

This plant is most commonly cultivated in towns as a hedge. Hence the name tubang-bakod, tuba being a name given to many plants of this family used for poisoning fish, and bakod, the Tagalog word for hedge or fence. Wehmer records that the seeds contain a toxic principle, toxalbumin curcin. Cruz and West report that physic-nut oil consists principally of glycerides of palmitic, oleic, and linolic acids. Marañon analyzed the bark of the stem and reports that the bark contains a considerable amount of chlorophyll, reducing sugars or other reducing substances, saponin, and a small amount of tannin, resin, and a trace of volatile oil. Euphorbin and alkaloid are absent. Sack states that yields a wax, which is a mixture of melissyl alcohol and its melissinic acid ester.

According to Watt and Breyer-Brandwijk, the seeds contain from 29 to 40 percent of yellow fixed oil (sp. gr. 0.929), known variously as Hell oil, Pinhoen oil, Oleum infernale and Oleum ricini majoris. It consists of the glyceride of a characteristic acid, belonging to the same group as ricinoleic and crotonoleic acids, but not identical with either. The activity is greater than that of castor oil and less than of croton oil.

The oil has been used for illuminating purposes in some parts of the Philippines. It is known in commerce as curcas oil. According to Richmond and Del Rosario, this oil belongs to the class of semidrying oils and is employed in the manufacture of soaps and candles and also as an illuminant and lubricant, but because of its drying properties it is not well adapted for the last-mentioned purpose. Richmond and Del Rosario say that the physic nuts they examined gave 45 percent of hulls and 55 percent of kernels; the latter yielded by extraction with chloroform 63.05 percent of oil, which corresponds to 34.65 percent calculated on the basis of whole seeds. Soliven determined the percentage of oil in the seed (22 percent), the physical properties of the oil, the chemical properties of the oil, and the composition of the seed cake and pulp.

The leaves are official in the Mexican (2-4); French (1,3) Pharmacopoeias and the seeds in the Mexican (2-4); and Venezuelan (1,2) Pharmacopoeias.

According to Steyn, curcin belongs to the same group of toxalbumins as crotin and ricin. The lesions in animals injected intravenously and subcutaneously with curcin are similar to those seen in crotin and ricin poisoning, with the exception that in the case of the former poison (curcin) there is an irritation in the gastro-intestinal tract. The external and internal actions of the oil are similar to those of croton oil, owing to the presence of the above acid (crotonoleic type). Eight drops of this oil taken by a student of Kobert’s induced such severe vomiting that ecchymoses appeared on the conjunctivae. The vomiting was followed by diarrhoea. Recovery, however, occurred on the following day. Bernard-Smith states that the acrid juice is an irritant poison with nerve-symptoms.

A dose of 1 to 4 seeds is a mild purgative; an overdose is a drastic purgative- causing vomiting, purging, - and violent inflammation of the mucous membrane of the stomach and intestines.

In the Philippines, according to Guerrero, the oil of the seeds is a drastic purgative. A decoction of the leaves is a good antidiarrhetic. A decoction of the roots is also used as a cure for diarrhea; while that of the leaves is employed as a cough remedy. The bark of this plant is pounded slightly and placed in the mouth as a cure for snakebite. It is apparently also applied to the bites of various animals. Sulit adds that the bark is used as a poultice for sprains and dislocations, and the sap is a cure for toothache.

The leaves are applied to wounds; in Cambodia they are applied for itches; in Malaya they are used as a rubefacient; and in India they are applied as a cataplasm to the mammae and as a lactagogue. An energetic rubbing with the oil on the abdomen of a woman will produce abortion. A decoction of the leaves is used in the Cape Verde Islands to excite secretion of milk.

The latex is used as a vulnerary by the Malays. It is used as a styptic in India, and in Cambodia it is applied to sores and ulcers. The fresh, viscid juice flowing from the stem is employed to arrest bleeding or haemorrhage from the wounds, ulcers, cuts and abrasions; it is said to promote healing by coagulating the blood and forming an air-tight film when dry, like that produced by collodion. It is a successful local remedy for scabies, eczema and ringworm.

In Goa the root-bark is applied externally for rheumatism. The fresh stems are used as toothbrushes, to strengthen the gums and to cure bleeding, spongygums, or gumboils.

The wood is used in Madagascar and Guiana as an antidiarrhoetic; the latex is applied to decayed teeth and to wounds, and is used as a styptic; the roots are given as an emetic and a purgative.

An infusion, cold or hot, of the leaves, sometimes with limejuice added, is a common lotion for fevers, etc. A decoction of the young leaves is also taken internally for fevers. The Bakwiri of Cameroons Mountain drink this decoction, added to beer, as a diuretic for rheumatism. In Gambia the leaves are used to make mouthwash. In the Gold Coast the leaves are commonly an ingredient in enema preparations, and are prepared, along with “oil palm” fruit, for an injection administered to weak children. In Southern Nigeria they are a remedy to jaundice, applied by rectal injection. The leaves are also widely used to treat Guinea-worm sores, being applied as a lotion made with the crushed leaves in hot water, or in the form of ashes of the burned leaves. In Cambodia the leaves are considered insecticidal.

The seed is a Brazilian anthelmintic; the principle is contained in the embryo. The oil is a drastic purgative. The oil is also useful externally in cutaneous diseases and rheumatism. Steyn quotes Dragendorff, who states that the seed contains a purgative oil, which is used as a remedy in dropsy, sciatica, paralysis, worms, and skin diseases. Externally it is an esteemed remedy for itches, herpes, and eczema, and it is said to be a cleansing application for wounds and ulcers. Diluted with a bland oil (1 part to 2 or 3), it forms a useful embrocation in chronic rheumatism. It is generally used for adulterating olive oil. Internally the seeds are considered in Cambodia as abortive.

CALLICARPA ERIOCLONA Schauer

Local names: Kagong (Bag.); palis (Tag.); salingarau (Neg.); tambalabasi (Tag.); tigau (Tag., P. Bis.); tubang-dalag (Tag.).

Tubang-dalag is rather common in primary and secondary forest at low altitudes in Luzon, Mindoro, Leyte, Negros, and Mindanao. It also occurs in Borneo, Celebes, New Guinea, New Britain, and New Ireland.

This is a lax shrub growing to 2 meters in height. The branches are relatively few slender, and the twigs are densely covered with dirty-brown, shaggy hairs. The leaves are oblong-obovate or oblong-elliptic, 13 to 24 centimeters in length, and 5 to 10 centimeters in width; the margin is entire toward the pointed base but toothed towards the pointed apex. The cymes upon the peduncles are as long as the petioles, and like them rather small and hairy. The flowers are minute, pale- or whitish-blue, borne on axillary cymes, and 2 to 5 centimeters long. The fruit (berry) is small, spherical, 3 to 4 millimeters in diameter, and subtended by a saucer-shaped calyx.

The leaves are used as a fish-poison.

According to Guerrero, in the Philippines this species is said to be used for the cure of itches.

JATRPHA GOSSYPIFOLIA Linn.

Local names: Balautandoiong (Ilk.); tagumbau-a-nalabaga (Ilk.); taua-taua(Ilk.); tuba-sa-buaia (Bik.); tuba-tuba (P. Bis., C. Bis.); lansi-lansinaan (Tag.).

Tuba-tuba is found in waste places at low altitudes, where it may be locally abundant in Amburayan; in Ilocos Sur, La Union, Pangasinan, Rizal Provinces in Luzon; and in Biliran, Leyte, Negros, Cebu, and Mindanao. It is a native of tropical America, and is now pantropic in distribution.

This plant is erect, branched, shrub usually less than 1 meter in height. The petioles, margins of the leaves and inflorescence are covered with numerous, capitate-glandular hairs. The leaves are shining, smooth, palmately 3- or 5- lobed, and 7 to 12 centimeters long, the lobes being oblong-ovate and the younger leaves being purplish. The flowers are purple, small, and borne on cymes. The capsules are usually 3- lobed, and about 1 centimeter long.

Villalba isolated from the roots of Jatropha gossypifolia Linn., var. elegans Mull. a very toxic alkaloid, jatrophine (C14H20O6N) 4 percent. Bocquillon-Limousin analyzed the stem and reported that the active principle is a glucoside and a resin.

In the Philippines a cataplasm of fresh leaves is applied to swollen mammae.

According to Bocquillon-Limousin, the roots are employed in Venezuela against leprosy, and a decoction of the leaves is given as a purgative and stomachic. The latex is administered to ulcers. In the Antilles the leaves are employed as a febrifuge in intermittent fevers.

According Caius, a decoction of the bark is used as an emmenagogue. The leaves are applied to boils and carbuncles, eczema and itches. In the Gold Coast the leaves and the seeds are used as purgative. The leaves are boiled and used in the bath to cure fever. Their juice is used to cure sores on the tongues of babies. In the pith of the old, thick stems a yellowish-brown substance is found and this is sold in Gold Coast medicine markets. It is put into a clean cloth and squeezed into the nostrils, causing the patient to sneeze, and effectively curing headaches.

Martinez says that a decoction of the leaves is given as a blood purifier, and for venereal diseases.

Burkill reports that the seeds contain an oil which is purgative and emetic like that of Jatropha curcas. The oil from the seeds has been said to be used in treating leprosy. Heyne states that the Madoerese use the seeds after roasting, twenty at a time, as a purgative for an adult.

SACCHARUM OFFICINARUM Linn.
Saccharum violaceum F. - Vill.

Local names: Agbo (Ibn.); caña dulce (Sp.); tubo (Tag., Bik.); tubu (Sul.); una (Ibn.): unas (Ilk.); unat (It.); sugar cane (Eng.).

Sugar cane is cultivated throughout the Philippines, in some islands and provinces very extensively, being one of the major crops of the Archipelago. It is not native to the Philippines.

Sugar cane is a large, coarse, erect grass. The stems are solid, polished green, yellow or purplish, attaining a height of 1.5 to 4 meters and a thickness of 2 to 5 centimeters; with long or short internodes. The leaves are very large and broad, with the blade 0.9 to 1.25 meters long and 4 to 5 centimeters wide. The panicles are very large, terminal, drooping, 40 to 80 centimeters long, white; the branches grow up to 35 centimeters in length. The spikelets are very numerous, 1-flowered, about 3 millimeters long, the surrounding white, villous hairs being about twice as long as the spikelets.

The product of the juice of sugar cane, sucrose (C12H22O11) is official in the British Pharmacopoeia and other modern pharmacopoeias. The crystals are odorless, and sweet.

According to Nadkarni sugar is demulcent, antiseptic, cooling, laxative and diuretic. It acts as food and nutrient. Sugar is used in catarrhs, as a vehicle for nauseous medicine, as a preserving agent of foods etc. It is one of the most generally used articles of diet and is taken for the purpose of maintaining animal heat. Sugar is also a rapid, innocent stimulant. Externally white sugar fully pulverized is occasionally sprinkled upon foul ulcers with unhealthy granulations. In gonorrhea and vaginal discharges a solution of sugar (1 in 3 of water) is an excellent application. Nadkarni, quoting Nelson, Heller and Fulmer states that molasses is rich in vitamin B.

Bentley and Trimen state that sugar is of little importance from medical point of view. It is nutritious, but the absence of nitrogen precludes it from supporting life. It is powerful antiseptic, and is largely used for preserving meat and fruit. In pharmacy, sugar is utilized to preserve; to give flavor, bulk, form, cohesiveness and consistence; to subdivide, and to suspend oily substances in aqueous fluids; and to preserve some inorganic compounds.

In China Stuart reports that refined sugar is considered to be remedy for spleen, and is prescribed in fevers, lack of secretion, dry coughs and similar difficulties. The molasses is used as laxative. Sugar is frequently used also as an application for wounds, ulcers, boils, and inflamed eyes. It is popularly used also in Mexico to relieve coughs.

The roots have been reported to be demulcent, emollient, diuretic and stimulant by Daruty and Chopra.

DIOSCOREA ESCULENTA (Lour.)
Oncus esculentus Lour.
Dioscorea papillaris Blanco
Dioscorea tugui Blanco
Dioscorea sativa Blanco
Dioscorea fasciculate Roxb.
Dioscorea tiliaefolia Kunth
Dioscorea aculeata Naves

Local names: Aneg (Ibn.); boga (llk.); dukas (Iv.); kamiging (Bik.); luttu(Ibn.); tongo (Tag.); tugi (Tag.Lk.); tungo (Tag.).

Tugi grows in thickets and secondary forests at low altitudes in Bataan Islands, in Cagayan, Benguet, La union, Pangasinan, Nueva Viscaya, Bulacan, Rizal, Bataan, and Laguna Provinces in Luzon, and in Semirara. It is also cultivated, but not as extensively as ubi (Dioscorea alata). It also occurs in India to Malaya and Polynesia.

Tugi is a slender, somewhat hairy, spiny vine, reaching a bright of several meters. The tubers are 15 to 20 centimeters in length, except in the case of some cultivated forms. Then leaves are simple, suborbicula to reniform, 6 to 12 centimeters long, apiculate, the base 11- to 15- nerved, prominently heartshaped, and the lobes rounded. The spikes are slender, axillary, pubescent, up to 50 centimeters long. The flowers are green, and about 4 millimeters in diameter.

In the Philippines tugi is coked in the same way as potatoes. Analyses of tugi made by Wester and Hermano show that it is rich in starch, and that its food value is very similar to that of ubi. Hermano and Sepulveda report that the tuber is a fair source of vitamin B.

Medicinally the tugi has limited use. Burkill quotes Rumpf, who states that the raw tubers are used for application on swellings. Crevost and Petelot report that in Indo-China a decoction of the tubers is given in the treatment of rheumatism and as a diuretic. In China it is used for beriberi.

DERRIS ELLIPTICA (Roxb) Benth
Galedupa elliptica Roxb.
Cylista piscatoria Blanco
Galactia terminaliflora Blanco
Millettia splendidissima Vidal
Milletia piscatoria Merr.

Local names: Bauit (Tag.); lapak (Bik.); malasiag (Tag.); tibalau (Tag.); tibanglan (Tag.); tabalai (P. Bis., Tag., Buk.); tugli (Tag.); tugling-pula (Tag.); tuva(Iv.); upei (Bon.); tuba (Malaya).

Tugli is found often abundantly in thickets along streams, in secondary forests, etc., at low and medium altitudes from northern Luzon to Mindanao. It also occurs in Chittagong through Malaya to New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago.

This plant is a rambling climber. The branches are covered with brown hairs. The leaves are pinnate and about 30 to 50 centimeters long. The leaflets are usually oblong, 9 to 13, when mature smooth above, and subglaucous and silky beneath, 10 to 15 centimeters long, and about half as broad. The racemes are lax and 15 to 30 centimeters in length, with reddish flowers. The pods are 5 to 8 centimeters long and contain 1 to 3 seeds.

Derris has come into considerable prominence recently on account of the insecticidal properties of the root, due primarily to the chemical rotenone.

Brown says the following regarding the use of the root: Since very early times Derris root has been used as a fish poison in the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, and the Malay Peninsula. A decoction of the root has long been used by Chinese and other gardeners of the Malay Peninsula as an insecticide. Rotenone is effective both as a stomach and a contact poison and so can be used against both biting and sucking insects. Rotenone has been found effective against plant lice, leaf beetles, aphids, flies, caterpillars, ticks, chicken lice, red spiders, and other insects. Rotenone has been reported as more effective than potassium cyanide or nicotine and equally effective as pyrethrum. It has the advantage over the latter of being more stable. Rotenone is applied either as a powder or as a spray.

Derris is not only poisonous to insects and fish, but also to other animals and to men. In the Philippines cattle are known to have been killed by eating the leaves. The root has been used as a poison for humans in both suicidal and murder cases. However, it has been generally concluded that there is little likelihood that any residue left from a spray will poison people, as the amount consumed would have to be considerably more than it is ever likely to be in this case. Rotenone occurs as white crystals which vary in shape but are mostly hexagonal or acicular. It has the empirical formula C23H22O8 and melts at 163°C.; it is optically active, the optical rotation ranging in different solvents from 66° to 230° at 20° C.

In 1911 Lenz worked on Derris elliptica from New Guinea and obtained a crystalline substance which he called derrin. Ishikawa called his crystals isolated from Derris elliptica, tuba-toxin. But Atsumi and Shimada came to the conclusion that Ishikawa had obtained Nagai’s rotenone (Nagai’s rotenone was obtained from Derris shinensis). Wehmer list the following constituents of the root: rotenone, derrid, anhydroderrid, derrin, tubotoxin and tubain. Uichanco [Thesis for Master of Science, Univ. of the Philippines, 1933; Uichanco, V. univ. Philip. Nat. & Appl. Sci. Bull 3 (1933) 129] made a chemical examination of the Derris elliptica, grown in the Philippines and of D. philippinensis and D. sp. She isolated pure rotenone as well as tephrosin and toxicarol. Maranon and Cosme [Nat Res. Council of the Philip. Bull. No. 19 (1938) 116] made a comparative study of method for determining rotenone in the Philippines, Bull. No. 19 (1938) 133] studied Philippine Derris. Sulit, Marañon and Cosme [Nat. Res. Council of the Philippinesd, Bull. No. 19 (1938) 133] studied Philippine Derrid from biochemical viewpoint.

As a medicinal plant, Derris has little use. Ridley reports that a scarp of the root with a little opium is sometimes used by Malay women as an abortifacient, being placed in the vagina and left all night or used on successive nights. Burkill and Haniff state that an infusion or decoction of the root boiled with coconut oil is applied to itches. A plaster of the root is also applied to abscesses and used for leprosy. Gimlette reports that the sap, combined with the Antiaris toxicaria, is used in Borneo as one of the ingredients of the Kayan dart and arrow poison for hunting. A similar use of the sap by the pagan races of the Malay Peninsula was reported by Newbold in 1939.

POUZOLZIA ZEYLANICA (Linn.) Benn. TUIA
Parietaria zeylanica Linn.
Parietaria indica Linn.
Pouzolzia indica Gaudich.
Urtica villosa Blanco
Urtica japonica Blanco
Pouzolzia viminea F.-Vill.

Local names: Apoyapoyan (Tag.); kayutkoran (Bag.); tuia (Tag.).

Tuia occurs in open, usually damp grasslands at low and medium altitudes throughout the Philippines. It is a polymorphous species of wide Indo-Malaya distribution.

The plant is a perennial, more or less prostrate or spreading herb, which sometimes reaches a length of 1.5 meters. The leaves are lanceolate to ovatelanceolate, 2 to 7 centimeters in length, 3-nerved, rounded or obtuse at the base, pointed at the tip, 3-nerved, and with entire margin. The flowers are small, 4-parted, borne in axillary clusters; with the staminate ones greenish or tinted with purple, and the pistillate one in the same fascicles with the staminate ones. The fruit is small and longitudinally ribbed.

According to Guerrero the leaves are used as a vulnerary, but more especially as a cicatrizant for gangrenous ulcers.

HELMINTOSTACHYS ZEYLANICA (Linn.) Hook.

Local Name: Tukod-langit (Tag.)

Tukod-langit grows to a foot or more in moist ground, being found especially along the banks of streams, though it is often met with in thickets, generally around bamboo clumps. It is widely distributed in the Philippines. It is found also from the Himalayas to Queensland and New Caledonia, Malay Peninsula.

The rhizomes are thick and creeping. The stipes are erect, 15 to 30 centimeters long. The fronds grow singly from underground rhizomes, and their appearance is characteristic. The leaf blade spreads out almost horizontally, resembling an umbrellahence the common name. It has three segments each of which may be divided into from two to five parts. The ultimate segments are 7 to 15 centimeters long, and 2 to 4 centimeters wide, lanceolate. Mature fertile leaves have a spike (7 to 20 centimeters long) that extends upward from the leaf stalk, roughly following the latter in length. The upper portion of the spike contains the spores.

The plant is well known in the markets, as the young, unexpanded leaves are popular as a vegetable and for salads. It is an excellent source of phosphorus and iron, but only a fair source of calcium.

According to Burkill the rhizome is medicinal, being used in Malaya as a tonic and eaten with betel. The Sakais use the rhizomes for syphilis. Rumpf states that the rhizome is chewed with betel for whooping cough. In Java it is used for dysentery and for catarrh and phthisis is their early stages. Chopra reports that the plant is used in sciatica. The plant is regarded in the Moluccas as a mild aperient.

MALLOTUS FLORIBUNDUS (Blume) Muell.-Arg.
Adisca floribunda Blume

Local names: Bagnan (Tagb.); batalang (Bag.); katula (Sub.); kayog (Mbo.); tula-tula (Tag., Bik., P. Bis., Tagb., Chab., Sul.); tuya-tuya (Tag.).

Tula-tula is found in forest at low and medium altitudes in Quezon, Camarines and Sorsogon Provinces in Luzon; and in Mindoro, Palawan, Masbate, Biliran, Samar, Leyte, Negros, Mindanao and Basilan. It also occurs in Tenasserim through Malaya to Celebes.

The tree attains a height of 10 meters or less. The leaves are alternate, peltate orbicular or orbicular-ovate, 7 to 16 centimeters long, and 5 to 15 centimeters wide; the apex is pointed, smooth above but glaucous beneath, with hairy glands on the axils at the base. The flowers are small. The male flowers are borne spikes 7.5 to 10 centimeters long, and the female ones occur on elongated racemes. The capsules are about 2 centimeters in diameter, nearly spherical, with thickly crustaceous, and hairy cocci.

The pant is not known medicinally in the Philippines. Heyne reports that the male flowers are used medicinally in Java. They are rather aromatic and are used with rice flour in making face powder and scented powders applied medicinally. Burkill states that in the Malay Peninsula a decoction of the root is administered for fevers, after childbirth, and for stomachache and cholera. A decoction of the plant is used as a lotion for yaws.

SPATHODEA CAMPANULATA Beauv.

Common names: Tulip tree, African tulip tree, fountain tree (Engl.).

The tulip tree is cultivated in Manila and in other large towns of the Philippines for ornamental purposes. It is a native of tropical Africa, and is now pantropic in cultivation.

This ornamental evergreen and erect tree reaches a height leaves are pinnate, 20 to 25 centimeters long, and divided into 5 to 8 pairs of leaflets. The leaflets are elliptic-oblong, 7.5 to 11 centimeters long, and 3.5 to 7 centimeters wide, with a pointed tip and several glands along the midrib near the base. The flowers are orange-red, large, about 10 centimeters long and 5 centimeters wide, and borne in terminal, erect inflorescences (racemes), with a peculiar smell. The calyx is spathe-like curved, brownish, velvety-smooth, and split nearly to the base on one side. The corolla is curved, the tube being narrow below, but strongly inflated and 5-lobed above. The pods are firm, thick, dark brown, and 15 to 20 centimeters long. The seed is about 2.5 centimeters wide, with a broad, silvery-white, transparent wing.

According to Dalziel the winged seeds are said to be more or less edible.

The bark is commonly used as a dressing for ulcers and skin diseases. Either it is dried and pulverized or the fresh inner bark is applied; or a black decoction (sometimes made with the leaves) is used as a lotion. In Senegal the bruised leaves and flowers are put on wounds; also, in Gabon the flowers are applied to ulcers. In the Gold Coast a decoction of the bark is taken for constipation and gastro-intestinal troubles, dysentery, etc. A cold infusion of the leaves is said to be good for urethral inflammation.

CORDYLINE FRUTICOSA (Linn.) A. Chev.
Convallaria fruticosa Linn.
Taetsia fruticosa (Linn.) Merr.
Asparagus terminaiis Linn.
Dracaena terminalis Rich.
Cordyline terminalis kunth

Local names: Baston de San Jose (Sp.); danga (Ilk.); dang-nga (Bon.); dangla (If.); kilala (Bik.); sagilala (Tag.); tokor-pari (Pamp.); tongkod-obispo(Tag.); tungkod-pare (Tag.).

Tungkod-pare is widely cultivated for ornamental purposes but, is not a native of the Philippines. Its probable origin is Malaya but it is now pantropic in cultivation.

Tungkod-pare is an erect, smooth shrub, which grows from 1 to 3 meters high from tuberous roots. The stems are simple or somewhat branched, and marked with leaf scars. The leaves are mostly near the apex of the stem, lanceolate to oblanceolate, and usually tinged with red or purple, 30 to 50 centimeters long. The panicles are terminal, purplish, and laxly branched; the branches are up to 30 centimeters in length, and slender. The flowers are pink, and about 1 centimeter long, slender, tabular, with the perianth split to the middle into 6 equal lobes. The fruits are globose, and about 5 millimeters in diameter, few-or 1-seeded.

Tungkod-pare is cultivated in the Philippines as an ornamental only. No other uses are known. Ochse reports that in Java the tender young shoots are eaten as a vegetable. Burkill quotes Rumpf on the use of the sweet rhizome with betel leaf to cure diarrhea and dysentery. Burkill adds that in Malaya a decoction of the red leaves with Lypodium is administered for dysentery. In Sumatra the outer part of the stem is used with suite salt for inflamed gums.

CALONYCTION MURICATUM (Linn.) G. Don
Canvolvulus muricatus Linn.
Ipomoea muricata Jacq.
Convolvulus colubrinus Blanco

Local names: Tonkin, tunkin (Tag.).

Tunkin is found in cultivation only in Pampanga, Luzon having been introduced from tropical America.

This is a smooth, climbing vine. The stems are rough, with small tuberculous outgrowths or prickles. The leaves are smooth, soft, heart-shaped, 5 to 10 centimeters long, and tapering abruptly into a narrow point at the tip. The flowers are large, 5 to 6 centimeters long, pale purple and borne singly or in small-stalked clusters resembling the morning glory. The fruit is rounded, and 10 to 15 millimeters in diameter. The seeds are polished, black, and smooth.

Guerrero reports that in the Philippines the seeds are vulnerary and are considered a very efficacious antidotal remedy for poisoning. They are also said to be purgative.

Kirtikar and Basu say that the seeds are used chiefly as a substitute for those of Ipomoea hederacea, seeming to have the same medicinal properties.The juice of the plant is used as an insecticide.