 Botany
Digkit is a large, climbing shrub, smooth or slightly hairy, with pendulous branches, armed with solitary, axillary, recurved spines, which are about 1 cm long. Leaves are shining, ovate-oblong to elliptic, 6 to 10 cm long, with both ends pointed. Flowers are borne in axillary and terminal, peduncled, corymbose cymes. Male flowers are yellowish-white, bell-shaped, 4 to 5 mm in diameter. Female flowers are ovoid and obscurely toothed. Fruit is narrowly oblong or clavate, 5-ribbed, 7 to 14 mm long, viscid, with muricate ribs, with several rows of glands.
Distribution
In thickets and open forests at low and medium altitudes.
Pantropic.
Parts used
Bark and leaves.
Uses
Folkloric
- In the Philippines, decoction of fresh leaves used to wash scabies.
- Bark and leaves used as counterirritant for swellings and rheumatic pains.
- Juice mixed with pepper and other ingredients given to children suffering from pulmonary complaints.
Studies
• Hepatoprotective / Antioxidant: Study results showed a remarkable hepatoprotective and antioxidant properties of P. aculeata against CCl4-induced hepatotoxicity in rats.
• Anti-Tumor: Study on the ethanol extract of P. aculeata leaves on Ehrlich Ascites Carcinoma in mice was shown to possess significant dose-dependent anti-tumor activity.
• Hepatoprotective / Rifampicin and INH-Induced Hepatotoxicity: Methanolic extract of leaves showed a remarkable hepatoprotective and antioxidant activity against rifampicin- and isoniazid-induced hepatotoxicity in rats.
• Hepatoprotective / Paracetamol-Induced Toxicity: Plant extract showed a remarkable hepatoprotective and antioxidant activity against paracetamol-induced hepatotoxicity. The activity was comparable to standard drug silymarin.
• Antitubercular Chromones and Flavonoids: Study yielded three new chromones, pisonins A, B, and D; two new flavonoids, pisonivanone and pisonivanol; one new isoflavonoid, pisonianone; and five other compounds, pisonins C, E, and F, pisoniamid and pisonolic acid, together with 18 known compounds. Isolates 2, 6, 14, 16, and 19 exhibited antitubercular activities against Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv in vitro.
Availability
Wild-crafted.
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