Botany
Lima-lima is a smooth vine, 2 to 6 meters high. Petioles are longer than the leaflets. Leaves are palmately compound leaves, with 5 to 6 leaflets. Leaflets are smooth and shining, leathery, elliptic to broadly ovate, of different sizes in the same leaf, 10 to 24 centimeters in length, 3 to 8 centimeters wide, with pointed tips. Flowers are greenish, 6-parted, 2 to 3 millimeters in diameter, borne on terminal, lax panicles 10 to 20 centimeters long. Fruit is globose and fleshy when fresh, 4 to 5 millimeters long with 6 prominent angles when dry.

Distribution
- Common in secondary forests and thickets at low and medium altitudes, occurring in most or all islands and provinces from the Batan Islandss and northern Luzon to Palawan and Mindanao.
- Also occurs in Indo-China, Thailand and Malaysia.

Constituents
- The leaves yield oeanolic acid, lutein, fatty alcohols and hydrocarbons.
- S. venulosa yielded a betulinic acid glycoside.

Properties
Antiscorbutic, vulnerary.

Parts utilized
Leaves, bark.

Uses
Folkloric
- Bark is used for treatment of coughs.
- Decoction of leaves used as antiscorbutic.
- Resin used as vulnerary.

Studies
• Phytochemicals: Study yielded oleanoli acid, lutein, fatty alcohols and hydrocarbons from the leaves of Schefflera odorata.
• Lectins / Wound Healing: (1) Philippine study reports the potential of leaves of two medicinal plants - Pithecellobium dulce and Schefflera odorata as available and inexpensive sources of lectins and suggests further studies for its wound healing properties. (2) Study extracted a lectin from the leaves of Schefflera odorata, non-bood type specific and non-blood group specific. The lectin was a glycoprotein containing 2.33% total sugars.
• Saponin / Cell-Signaling Pathway Modulator: Study evaluating the mechanisms of how saponins from leaf extracts of S. odorata modulat cell signalling pathways suggest: (1) leaf extracts act as an extracellular signal switching off extracellular enzymes and (2) induction of apoptosis through signal transmission into the nucleus promoting DNA fragmentation of cancer cell lines. Study also demonstrated antioxidant and immunomiodulatory properties.
• Anti-Protozoal: In a study of 10 lectins screened for cytotoxic activity against Acanthamoeba sp. (a keratitis-causing amoeba) and Tetrahymena pyriformis, lectins from Schefflera odorata and Swietenia macrophylla were found to possess high cytotoic activity against the test organisms.

Availability
Wild-crafted.