Botany
Huniyan is a small, inconspicuous undershrub growing up to 15 centimeters in height, produced from stout, elongated, woody roots, with hardly any stems. Roots are about as thick as a crowquill with numerous, almost-globular, woody knots. Leaves are simple, obovate-oblong or obovate, up to 13 centimeters long, 6.5 centimeters wide, and pointed at both ends, with entire and irregularly toothed margins. Stalks are very short, 2 to 4 millimeters long. Flowers are greenish-white, 4-parted, and borne on short, terminal inflorescences about 1 centimeter long. Fruit is black, broadly obovoid, and 4 to 5 millimeters in diameter.
Distribution
- In open grasslands at low and medium altitudes in Cagayan, Isabela, Bontoc, and Nueva Viscaya Provinces in Luzon, and in Mindanao.
- Also occurs in India, Thailand, and Hainan..
Constituents
- Root contains an orange-brown acid resin (soluble in ether, alcohol and alkaline solutions), traces of an alkaloid, and starch, with an entire absence of astringency.
- Study yielded sirutekkone, a diterpenoid.
Properties
- Root is bitter, stomachic.
Parts used
Root.
Uses
Folkloric
- In India, the juice of the root, mixed with juice of ginger and warm water, given for asthma.
- Bitter root is considered as stomachic; given for rheumatism and dropsy.
- Root bark used for toothache.
- Leaves are used for fever, cough, rheumatism; poultices applied to boils.
- In Ayurveda, alone or as ingredient, used for bronchitis, asthma, hypertension, tumors, inflammation, hiccough, epilepsy and helminthiasis.
Studies
• Antipyretic / Antinociceptive / Anti-Inflammatory: Study of alcoholic extract of roots of Premna herbacea in animal models showed significant antipyretic activity in rabbits, mild nociceptive activity in mice, and significant activity in chronic inflammation.
• Toxicity Study: Alcoholic extract was found to be safe up to a dose of 8.0 g/kg in mice.
• Bharangin / Cytotoxic Properties: Bharangin, a novel diterpenoid quinonemethid, has been isolated from the hexane extract of root nodules. Bharangin exhibited cytotoxic properties against P-338 tumor cell line.
• Cytotoxicity / Antitumor: Study investigated root nodules for in vitro cytotoxicity and was found most effective with the alcohol and ethyl acetate extracts in the brine shrimp lethality assay and trypan blue exclusion assay. In vivo antitumor activity was tested in Erlich ascites carcinoma and Dalton lymphoma models. Extracts and fractions showed potent antitumor activity against solid tumor models by significantly reducing the solid tumor weight and volume.
Availability
Wild-crafted.
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