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Botany
Bulak-manok is an erect, slender, branched
perennial, hairy and aromatic herb, 15 to 60 centimeters in height. Leaves are stalked, alternate, ovate, 4 to 11 centimeters long, and 1 to 5
centimeters wide, with the tip and base somewhat pointed, and with round toothed
margins, hispidly hairy. Flowering heads are numerous, small, about 5 millimeters across,
and borne in dense terminal corymbs. Ray flowers are many, pale blue, purple
or white. Disk flowers absent. Fruits (achenes) are black, with 5 pappus scales which are awned
and often toothed or serrate below.
Distribution
- A common weed flowering year-round throughout the Philippines from sea level to an altitude of
2,000 meters. The seeds are light, easily dispersed and disseminated by wind.
- Of American origin.
- Now pantropic.
Constituents
• Leaves yield a volatile oil, 0.00054 percent, which contains sesquiterpene.
• Plant yields a vegetable proximate principle known as "coumarin," also found in the allied genus, Eupatorium.
• Yields mono and sesquiterpenes, chromene, chromone benzofuran
and coumarin, flavonoids, triterpene and sterols, and alkaloids.
• Essential oil from leaves and flowers yielded ageratochromene (precocene II, 25.89%), the sesquiterpene beta-caryophyllene (23.79%); demethoxyageratochromene (precocene I, 14.76%), and some monoterpene hydrocarbons (2-5.5%).
Properties
• Plant has a characteristic aromatic odor when crushed.
• Considered analgesic, antispasmodic, febrifuge, tonic, laxative, vulnerary.
• Considered antioxidant, antibacterial, antiinflammatory.
Parts utilized
Leaves, young stems and flowering tops.
Uses
Folkloric
- In the Philippines, juice of fresh leaves is widely used as a vulnerary, pounded and mixed with salt.
- Stem, roots, and flowers of the plant are boiled, the resulting decoction used for stomach troubles.
- The whole plant has been used as a decoction for cough, colds, fever,
skin disease, and high blood pressure. Also for bleeding due to external wounds; furuncle, eczema, carbuncle.
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Poultices for headaches.
- Squeezed juice from fresh
material when dropped inside the ears treats otitis media.
- Leaves sometimes cooked in coconut oil, and the medicated oil applied to wounds.
- Used for fever, cough and colds; hepatitis, dysentery; neurasthenia,
snake bites, dizziness.
In Brazil, used as stimulant, tonic, emmenagogue, diuretic and carminative. Leaf infusion used for colic,
fever, diarrhea, rheumatism, spasms.
In Africa, used for fever, headache, rheumatism,
pneumonia, and healing of burn wounds.
In India, used for leprosy and oil lotion
for purulent ophthalmia.
In Vietnam, used for gynecologic disease.
In Congo and Cameroon,
used for fever, rheumatism, headache and colic.
In Togoland, used for fevers.
Among Hindus, popular as an external application for agues.
In Java, paste of roots rubbed on the body for fever.
Juice applied as remedy for anal prolapse.
In the Gold Coast Colony, juice from squeezed leaves used as lotion for the eyes.
In Sierra Leone, leaves used as remedy for craw-craw; also used for chronic ulcers, and intravaginally, for uterine troubles. Also, crushed in water and given as an emetic.
In Trinidad used as abortifacient, depurative, decoagulant; for cough, cystitis, diabetes flu.
In Siberia, extract of leaves are rubbed on the chest for pneumonia in children.
In Java, paste of leaves, mixed with chalk, used for wounds.
Poultice of leaves applied to boils; also, applied to wounds to prevent tetanus.
In South Cameroons, leaves are pounded with Ocimum and macerated in water with "bush pepper" as a purgative enema preparation.
 Studies
• Antibacterial / Phytochemicals:
Phytochemical testing of dried leaves yielded resins, alkaloids, saponins, tannins, glycosides and flavonoids while dried stems showed resins, saponins, tannins, glycosides and flavonoids. In vitro studies of AC extracts activity against
S aureus, Y enterocolitica, S gallinarum, and E coli, suggesting a potential
source for development of new antibacterials.
• Antiulcerogenic / Gastroprotective:
Study documents the beneficial cytoprotective effects of the plant extract
against ethanol-induced gastric ulcers in rats.
• Analgesic / Antiinflammatory:
Study results suggested that AC extract exhibited antinociceptive effect
and inhibition of inflammatory reactions induced by neutrophil mobilizing
stimuli.
• Antimicrobial:
Crude extract studies demonstrated antimicrobial properties on S aureus
and Methicillin-resistant S aureus and possible usefulness in skin and
wound infections.
• Hemostatic:
Study yielded tannins, saponins and flavonoids and confirmed the hemostatic
activity of the leaf extract through vasoconstriction and formation
of an "artificial clot" to arrest the small vessel bleeding.
• Radioprotective:
Study of AC extract showed it to be non-toxic at its highest dose and
exhibiting a radioprotective activity in part attributed to the scavenging
of reactive oxygen species induced by ionizing radiation.
• Wound Healing:
Extract study showed wound healing effect better than normal saline
treated controls, an effect attributed to the antimicrobial properties
of AC.
• Blood Glucose Lowering:
(1) Study
of aqueous extracts of leaves of Ageratum conyzoides in normoglycemic and STZ-induced diabetic rats showed significant reduction of blood glucose levels. (2) Study of aqueous extracts of leaves of Ageratum conyzoides in normoglycemic and STZ-induced diabetic rats confirmed the hypoglycemic properties of the leaves of A conyzoides.
• Anti-Inflammatory / Toxicity Study:
Study confirmed the anti-inflammatory properties of A conyzoides with no apparent hepatotoxicity.
• Anti-Cancer / Radical Scavenging Activity:
Various extracts of A conyzoides were screened in some cancer lines including Human non-small cell lung CA, human colon adenocarcinoma, human gastric CA, and human breast CA among others.
Results showed A conyzoides possessed anticancer and antiradical properties.
Availability
Wild-crafted.
Seeds, tinctures and extracts in the cybermarket. |
