Botany
Malapako is a stout, coarse, smooth or somewhat hairy herb, more or less branched, often half-woody, and 0.4 to 1.5 meters high. Leaves are lanceolate, 6 to 15 cm long. Flowers are yellow, axillary, without a stalk or with a very short stalk, borne in the axils of leaves. Calyx is green. Petals are four, yellow, orbicular-obovate, and about 1 cm long. Capsules are green or purplish, 3 to 5 cm long, 5 mm thick or less, and 8-ribbed. Calyx lobes are persistent, oblong-ovate, and about 1 cm long.

Distribution
In open, damp places, in swamps, throughout the Philippines.
Pantropic.

Properties
Considered astringent, carminative, diuretic and vermifuge.

Parts used
Leaves

Uses
Culinary
Leaves used for tea by the Malay.
Folkloric
Plant, pulped and steeped in buttermilk, used for diarrhea and dysentery.
Decoction used as diuretic, vermifuge and purgative; also, used for flatulence.
As astringent, used for hemoptysis and leucorrhea.
Mucilaginous leaves used for poulticing headaches and for orchitis and glands in the neck.
Leaves used for nervous diseases.

Studies
• Studies: Studies

Availability
Wild-crafted.