 Botany
Bias-pugo is an erect, branched, smooth, slender, annual, more or less purplish herb, 10 to 50 centimeters in height. The stems are somewhat 4-angled. Leaves are oblong, oblanceolate, or narrowly elliptic, about 3.5 centimeters long, those on the branches very numerous, small, 1 to 1.5 centimeters long, with narrowed base and pointed or somewhat rounded tip. Flowers are small, about 1.2 millimeters long, greenish or purplish, borne in dense axillary clusters. Capsules are nearly spherical, depressed, about 1.2 millimeters in diameter, purple, and irregularly circumsciss above the middle. Seeds are black.
Distribution
- In open, damp, waste places throughout the Philippines at low and medium altitudes throughout the Philippines.
- Also occurs in tropical Asia and Africa and through Malaya to tropical Australia.
Constituents
- Plant yields resin, glucose, and probably an active principle.
- Phytochemical screening yielded tannins, saponins, flavonoids, steroids, and alkaloids.
- Series of studies for chemical constituents yielded four known compounds: β-sitosterol-3-O- β-glucopyranoside, quercctin-3-rutinoside (Rutin), kaempferol-3-O- β-glucopyranoside and quercetin-3-O-α-L-rhamnoside (Quercitrin).
Properties
- Plant is caustic.
- Leaves are caustic, rubefacient, irritant and vesicant.
Parts used
Leaves.
Uses
Folkloric
- Used in place of catharides for blistering plaster.
- Leaves are vesicant. In India, used to raise blisters, applied to the skin for half an hour or longer.
- Ethereal tincture found equal to liquor epispasticus.
- Leaves or ashes of the plant, mixed with oil, applied to herpetic eruptions.
- Fresh bruised leaves used in skin diseases as rubefacient and as external remedy for ringworms and parasitic skin infections.
- Also used for urinary calculi.
- In India, leaf paste applied to swellings.
- In India and China, used for wound healing.
Studies
• Cytotoxicity / Anticancer: Study investigated the cytotoxic effects of extracts from 16 Bangladesh medicinal plants. The methanolic extract of A baccifera showed low toxicity against mouse fibroblasts but selective cytotoxicity against different cancer cell lines.
• Antibacterial: Study of methanolic extract exhibited activity against B cereus and P vulgaris.
• Urinary Stones / Preventive and Curative: Ethanolic extract was reported to be effective in reducing the formation of urinary stones and the dissolving existing ones that were induced by the implantation of zinc discs in the urinary bladder of rats. Treatment with A. baccifera also significantly reduced calcium and magnesium levels.
• Safety Studies: Evaluation of ethanolic extract of Ammannia bacifera in rats for acute and subacute toxicological effects showed all the animals to tolerate the maximum test dose without any significant toxic effect and was considered to be safe.
• Wound Healing: Significant wound healing was observed with creams prepared from a 5% chloroform fraction of A. baccifera. Ethanol leaf extract application was found to improve different phases of wound repair, including collagen synthesis and maturation, wound contraction and epithelialization.
• Antiurolithic: An ethanolic extract of A. baccifera for antiurolithic activity in male albino rats. Induced stones were mainly magnesium ammonium phosphate with traces of calcium oxalate. There was significant urinary excretion of calcium, magnesium and oxalate. Treatment with A. baccifera resulted in significant reduction of calcium and magnesium levels in the prophylactic group and reversed their levels to normal in the curative group.
• Analgesic: Study of ethanol extract of A. baccifera in chemical models of nociception in mice showed a dose-dependent analgesic effect.
• Antisteroidogenic Activity: Study of ethanol extract of the whole plant exhibited antisteroidogenic activity. There was significant inhibition of the activity of Δ5-3β-hydroxy steroid dehydrogenase (Δ5-3β-HSD) and Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G-6-PD), the two key enzymes involved in ovarian steroidogenesis. Preliminary phytochemical testing revealed the presence of flavonoids to which the antisteroidogenic activity might be attributed.
• Antioxidant / Free Radical Scavenging: Treatment with an ethanol extract of A. baccifera can minimize the deleterious effects caused by carbon tetrachloride through its strong antioxidative and free radical scavenging properties.
Availability
Wild-crafted.
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