Botany
Anabiong is a small tree, 5 to 8 meters high, with elongated branches. Leaves are distichous, the upper surface rough; the lower, pale and covered with soft dense hairs, oblong-ovate to lanceolate, 8 to 15 cm long, with the base frequently unequal, broad and heart-shaped, and the apex long and thinly pointed, and prominently 3-nerved with finely toothed margins. Cymes are dense, hairy, 1 to 2.5 cm long. White flowers are numerous, about 3 mm long. Fruit is ovoid, about 3.5 cm long.

Distribution
- In deserted clearings, thickets, and second-growth forests, often abundant, and found throughout the Philippines, at low and medium altitudes, in some places ascending to 2,000 meters.
- Also occurs in India to southern China and southward to northeastern Australia and Polynesia.

Constituents
- Bark contains a little tannin.
- Study isolated three new compounds (dihydrophenanthrenes and phenyldihydroisocoumarin) from the extracts of trunk bark and root bark.
- Study yielded the presence of tannins and phenolic compounds, fixed oils, fats, phytosterols, and flavonoids.

Parts used
Bark, wood.

Uses
Folkloric
• In the Philippines, juice obtained from macerating the soft wood is used for poulticing swellings.
• Fruit, leaves, bark, stems, twigs and seeds are used in traditional East and West Africa, Tanzania and Madagascar medicine.
• In India, plant is used in epilepsy.
• In Cote-d'Ivoire, leaf decoction used for hypertension.
Others
Young leaves eaten as spinach by the Zulus.
The bast used in making string or rope.
The wood which is soft is used in making wooden shoes.
The bark tannin used in roughening and coloring fishing lines.

Studies
• Phytochemicals: (1) Study of extracts of trunk and root barks isolated 16 compounds; among them – methylswertianin, decussatin, glycosides of decussatin, sweroside, scopoletin, lupeol, ß-sitosterol and hexacosanoic acid. (2) Study yielded 8 compounds: ampelopsin F, (-) epicatechin, (+)-catechin, (+) syringaresinol, cinnamic acide among others. (3) Study isolated from stem-bark of TO a new pentacyclic triterpenoid alcohol, trematol.
• Ethnobotanical Study / Blood Pressure Lowering: Trema orientalis was one of 33 species of plants used for treatment of hypertension. Used as a leaf decoction, its effect was attributed to polyphenols, potassium retention and the promotion of diuresis.
• Anti-Convulsive Effect: Study of a methanol extract from dried leaves showed anticonvulsive activity on tonic flexion and tonic extension.
• Glucose-Lowering: Study was done on the glucose-lowering effect of the aqueous stem bark extract in normal and streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. Results showed T. orientalis stem bark extract significantly reduces blood glucose in STZ-induced diabetic rats by a mechanism different from the of sulfonylurea agents.

Availability
Wildcrafted.