| Botany
Rhizomatous shrub with stems up to
2 to 3 meters tall, several growing in a cluster, smooth, and much branched.
Leaves are short-pertioled, thin, smooth, ovate, 15 to 18 cm long and
9 cm wide. Panicles are loosely- and few-branched. Calyx tube is about
1 cm long with lanceolate segments, acute and ribbed. Corolla lobes
are white, linear to oblong, and longer than the tube. The staminodes
are obovate and large, with the tip smaller, obovate and clawed. Anther,
filament and lobe are linear. Fruit is globoid to ellipsoid, slightly
hairy, about 1 cm in diameter and whitish. Seeds are oblong, grooved
and strongly wrinkled.
Distribution
Common in secondary forests, especially
along streams, at low and medium altitudes.
Parts utilized
Roots, stems, leaves.
Uses
Folkloric
• Roots, brewed in decoction,
are used as antidote for snake bites and for blood poisoning.
• In Macassar, paste
of young stems with ginger and cinnamon bark is taken for biliousness.
• Juice from young curled up leaves used for sore eyes.
• In Vanuatu, used postpartum to draw placental fragments: right side of the leaf blade is squeezed into a glass of water to drink.
Others
Split stems are used for basket weaving, making fish
traps and hats, and for sewing nipa shingles.
Availability
Wildcrafted.
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