Botany
Melon-gubat is a perennial herb with simple tendrils. Stems are climbing, long, slender, much-branched, angular, and covered with spreading, bristly hairs, with the young parts densely covered with white hairs. Leaves are ovcate or triangular, ovate, variable in size, usually 5 to 9 cm long (but often only 2.5 to 4 cm) and 2 to 8 cm wide, very deeply heart-shaped at the base, pointed or obtuse at the apex, rather shallowly 5-lobed, coarsely toothed at the margins, and usually rough. Petioles are fully half as long as the leaves. Flowers are yellow and very small, the males occurring infasicles and the females, singly. Calyx is hairy, with linear segments. Petals are ovate, and only about 2 mm long. Fruit is a berry, scarlet when ripe, rounded, 10 to 12 mm in diameter, and furnished with a few scattered hairs. Seeds are closely packed, ovoid, oblong, about 4 mm long, and compressed in the pulp.
Distribution
- In open grasslands, old clearings, etc., at low and medium altitudes, in Batan Island; Lepanto and Bontoc Subprovinces; Cavite and Laguna Provinces in Luzon; in Masbate; in Palawan and Mindanao.
- Also found in Tropical Africa and from Asia, through Malaya, to tropical Australia.
Parts used
Roots, seeds, leaves.
Uses
Folkloric
Decocted seeds are sudorific.
Decoction of seeds used for flatulence; when masticated, relieves toothaches.
Tender shoots and bitter leaves are used as gentle aperient; also, for vertigo and biliousness.
Availability
Wild-crafted.
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