Jungle Banana

Musa gracilis 

Local Name: Pisang sum 

Family: Musaceae

Habitat: Grows well under full sun or in a sheltered location with consist moist but well-drained, fertile soils. 

Description: 

Growth Form: Slender banana to 2m tall.
Foliage: Leaves are large, broadly-lanceolate, solid green.
Stems: The stem is a pseudostem, formed by tightly packed leaf sheathes.
Flowers: The small green flowers are enclosed in ovate bracts. The bracts are white, with rosy-purple to pale-purple hues and green tips.
Fruits: Fruits are angled, pale greenish-white to greenish-yellow, measuring about 6 cm long.

Plant Part Used: Stem and flower 

Preparation: Sap collected 

Administration: Oral: drink, applied on tongue

Symptom: Cough

Reference: Flora & Fauna Web. Musa gracilis. National Parks Board Singapore. https://florafaunaweb.nparks.gov.sg/

‘Rotan Semambu’

Calamus scipionum

Common Name: Semambu rattan 

Local Name: Rotan Semambu 

Family: Arecaceae

Habitat:  It is a widespread lowland species rarely occurring above 200 m altitude. It appears to favour better soils such as alluvial soils in the floodplains of rivers. It is very tolerant of forest clearance, and is often found in secondary forest. C. scipionum has not been found in primary lowland dipterocarp forest.

Description: 

Massive clustering rattan climbing to great heights, reaching lengths of 50 m or more. Stem without leafsheaths to 2535 mm in diameter, with rather prominent nodes, and slightly lopsided in transverse section; internodes very long, sometimes exceeding 1 m, with sheaths 50 mm in diameter. Leaf ecirrate to about 2 m in length; leafsheath midgreen, armed with large, triangular, flattened, yellowishbased, black spines to 5 cm long and 1.5 cm wide at the base, and abundant grey indumentum when young; knee conspicuous; ocrea short, quickly tattering; flagellum massive, dark green, frequently exceeding 7 m in length, armed with whorls of black tipped, reflexed spines; petiole to about 30 cm; leaflets about 25 on each side of the rachis, regularly arranged, the lowermost to 40 cm×3 cm, midleaflets to 60 cm×6 cm, the uppermost to 20×3 cm, very sparsely bristly at tips. Inflorescences male and female, superficially similar, to 6 m or more in length with about 7 short to elongated partial inflorescences, sometimes to 1.5 m long, with slender reflexed rachillae in the female, and finely branched rachillae in male. Ripe fruit ovoid, to 14 mm×9 mm, very shortly beaked, covered in 1415 vertical rows of dull green scales. Seed ovoid, about 10 mm×5 mm with scattered pits, the pits penetrating very slightly the otherwise homogeneous endosperm. Seedlingleaf with 4 leaflets displayed in a fan.

Plant Part Used: Stem 

Preparation: Sap collected 

Administration: Oral: drink 

Symptom: Fever 

References: 

Manokaran. 2016. Calamus scipionum. Plant Resources of South-East Asia. http://uses.plantnet-project.org/en/Calamus_scipionum_(PROSEA). 

Fruits

Spines

The plant

 

Ignatius Bean

Strychnos ignatii 

Local Name: Akar Ipoh 

Common Name: Ignatius Bean 

Family: Loganiaceae

Habitat: Open woodlands on limestone, scrub, sometimes along river banks at elevations from 400 – 800 metres. Usually found in dense forest, often in dipterocarp forest on sandy soil or in mixed rain forest, sometimes on river banks

Description: 

It is a creeping plant that climbs to the highest treetops with its hooked, woody tendrils, which are compressed in the middle. The trunk can exceed 10cm in diameter and has a smooth, reddish bark. The thin twigs with felt-like hair bear opposing elliptical or broadly ovate leaves up to 25cm long. The tips of the leaves are shaped in such a way as to allow water or dew to run off. The inconspicuous, greenish flowers are arranged in clustered umbels. The superior ovaries develop pumpkin-like, pale orange-yellow, hard-shelled berries 12cm in diameter. The fruits contain up to 40, densely packed, hard seeds each about 3cm long. They are ovate, irregular in form, matt, grey brown, and very bitter. The plant flowers throughout the year.

Plant Part Used: Stem 

Preparation: Decoction in water, infusion in water

Administration: Oral: drink

Symptoms: Fever, rheumatism

Reference: 

1. Useful Tropical Plants Database 2014 by Ken Fern, web interface by Ajna Fern with help from Richard Morris. 

2. Strychnos ignatii Berg. in GBIF Secretariat (2017). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist Dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2018-05-24.

 

Dried fruits

Plant Herbarium

Silver Back Tree

Rhodamnia cinerea 

Local Name: Pelongot

Common Name: Silver back tree 

Family: Myrtaceae

Habitat:  It grows in secondary forests in the lowlands.

Description: 

Growth Form: It is a small evergreen tree up to 15 m tall, with a dense, rounded crown.
Foliage: Its opposite, shortly-stalked leaves have leaf blades that are oblong, 5–15 by 1.8–7 cm, tapering at both ends, and sometimes with long tips. The leaf blades have 3 distinct longitudinal veins, and characteristically silvery or grey undersides owing to the minute silky hairs. In some trees, the leaf blades are green below.
Flowers: Its flowers develop in stalked clusters of up to 6 at each leaf axil. The flowers are white with a reddish centre, very fragrant, and about 1 cm wide, each with 4 petals and sepals.
Fruits: Its 3–8-seeded fruits are small, round berries, silky, and up to 1 cm wide. They are green turning red, then purple and finally black when ripe. The top of the fruit is crowned by remnants of the sepals. Pale yellow, angular, hard seeds are embedded in the fleshy fruit pulp.

Plant Part Used: Plant sap 

Preparation: Drinking directly once cut in the forest and fed into a cup

Administration: About ¼ of a cup once take it and about 2 to 3 times/per day until recover

Symptoms: Fever, tiredness

 

Reference: 

1. National Park Flora & Fauna Web. Rhodamnia cinerea. https://florafaunaweb.nparks.gov.sg/
2. The DNA of Singapore, Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum. https://lkcnhm.nus.edu.sg/.
3. 

   Matured fruits

   

   Flowers

   

   Immature fruit

   

   Leaves and fruits

   

   

   The tree

 

Malayan Ginseng Tree

Rennelia elliptica

Local Name: Sengilur 

Family: Rubiaceae

Description: Small tree or shrub, 1.5-2 m height; stem lignosus; leaves elliptic, 8-23 cm long, glabrous, dark green or pale green coloured; petiole long; inflorescences terminal; flowers white or dark purple coloured, very fragrant; corolla tube purple coloured; infructescence terminal; fruit globose, green coloured.

Plant Part Used: Root 

Preparation: Decoction a few minutes until the water turns to yellowish

Administration: 2 to 3 times until recover and can be consumed as a daily drinks

Treatment: Body weakness, jaundice, tiredness

 

Reference: 

Rennellia elliptica Korth., Ned. Kruidk. Arch. 2(2): 257 (1851). http://www.asianplant.net/Rubiaceae/Rennellia_elliptica.htm

 

Flower

 

Batflower?

Tacca integrifolia 

Local Name: Pelemah urat  

Common Name: White Bat Flower , Giant Bat Plant 

Family: Dioscoreaceae

Habitat: Forests and mountain slopes around 800m

Description: 

It is long-lived, short stemmed rhizomatous herbaceous plants. It has attractive, entire leaves, vertical growth habit and strange whisker-like (filiform) bracts below the flowers that can hang down for as much as 3m (1 foot) in length. It is these structures and their accompanying cluster of luridly coloured flowers that has given rise to the sobriquet “batflower” for these marvelous tropical plants. Cloaking the flowers from above are two broad, light coloured and showy bracts, expanding like bat wings. Tacca integrifolia has white bracts hovering over the nodding flowers. The bracts are beautifully veined with purple. Beneath the clusters of purplish flowers hang the long filiform bracts, the whiskers. But, occasionally there is a variation and the bracts are purple or pure white and very occasionally the whiskers can be white. The plants reach about 1.2m (4 feet) in height.
The cylindrical rhizome of this plant grows vertically and the crown of large, attractive leaves emerge from the top of the rhizome. The leaves are lance-shaped with large blades up to 60cm (24 inch) long sustained on a petiole up to 40cm (15 inch) long.

Flowering seems to begin when the plants have produced 2-3 full-size leaves. Each plant produces at least 6 and up to 12 long-lasting flower stems during the warm months of the year. Tacca integrifolia flowers are presumed to be pollinated by flies. In cultivation, apparent self-pollination takes place in a certain percentage of plants. The leathery capsules about 4cm (1.5 inch) long require up to a year to ripen. When they split along their sides, numerous 0.5cm (0.25 inch) seeds are revealed embedded in a sticky pulp.

Plant part used: Leaves

Preparation: Apply externally to the area with warm up the leaves at both side

Administration: Unlimited pieces

Treatment: Joint pain, muscle aches, knee pain, swollen, sprain

 

Reference: 

1. “Tacca integrifolia“. Plants and Flowers. http://www.plantsrescue.com/tacca-integrifolia/ 

2. The DNA of Singapore. “Tacca integrifolia“. Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum. https://lkcnhm.nus.edu.sg/

Flowers and fruits

Whole plant

 

Fever Savior!

Scaphium macropodum

Local Name: Kembang semangkuk

Common Name: Malvia Nut 

Family: Malvaceae

Habitat: It grows on well-drained hillsides, ridges, swamp forests, and sub-montane forests up to 1,200 m altitude. It is natively distributed in Thailand, Cambodia, Sumatra, Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, and Borneo.

Description: 

Growth Form: It is a tree up to 45 m tall.
Foliage: Its alternate, stalked leaves have leathery leaf blades that are variable in shape, and 15-25 by 1-12 cm. The young trees have palmately-lobed leaves, and the number of leaf lobes decreases as the tree ages, such that adult trees have unlobed leaves in their crowns.
Flowers: Its flowers are white-yellow and about 5 mm wide.
Fruits: Its fruits are green-yellow-brown, about 20 cm long, and with boat-shaped wings. Its brownish seeds are ellipsoid, hairless, and 25 by 15 mm.

Conservation Status: Least Concern

Plant part used: Fruits 

Preparation: Maceration/soaking the fruits in a bowl with water until fluffy

Administration: 3 times a day and can be consumed as daily drinks

Treatment: It can be used to treat fever or cool down the body temperature.

 

Refrence:

1. World Conservation Monitoring Centre. 1998. Scaphium macropodum. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 1998: e.T33255A9771604. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.1998.RLTS.T33255A9771604.en. 

2. National Flora & Fauna Web. Scaphium macropodum. Singapore Government. https://florafaunaweb.nparks.gov.sg/

The tree.

Flowers

Herbarium

Leaves

Fruits with seeds

The seed of Scaphium macropodum when it was soaked in water

Yao @ Perut Keletong

Thottea praetermissa

Common Name: Yao @ Perut Keletong

Family: Aristolochiaceae

Description:

• Stem: 0.5–1.3 m tall, slender stem, erect, scarcely branched, pendent at the top. Dark green in colour with 4–5 mm diam, surface smooth, densely puberulent; nodes pronounced.
• Leaves: bract-like reduced leaves 4–5, 7–9 leaves on one stem. The petiole is slender with 5–10 mm long, 1–3 mm in diam, puberulent. The above lamina is green while the below lamina is pale green. It becomes brown when dry. Oblong or lanceolate in shape with the size of 15–22 by 5–7.5 cm. The base is cuneate, the margin is entire, the apex is acute or shortly mucronate. Pinnate venation with basal pairs.
• Inflorescences: Located at the base of stem close to, or with a few well above
  ground level with 40–80 mm long, 1–1.5 mm in diam and it is densely pubescent. The colour of the perianth is dull magenta on the outer surface and it is paler on the inner surface.

Habitat: This plant can be found in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore. It lives and undergrowth in lowland forest and it needs heavily shaded. It is also can be found on damp soil of forest close to the freshwater swamp.

Conservation status: Rare (in Malaysia)

Ethnobotanical Uses:

• Plant Part Used: Root
• Preparation Methods: It is can be either been eaten raw or decoction in water.
• Ways of Administration: It can be orally consumed either drink the decocted drinks or eat the roots raw.
• Use to treat: It is used to treat mild cough and cough with sputum.

 

 

The flower of Thottea praetermissa

 

 

The seed pod of Thottea praetermissa

 

Reference

Yao, T. L. (2013). Nine new species of Thottea (Aristolochiaceae) in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, with two taxa in Peninsular Malaysia redefined and a taxon lectotypified. Blumea-Biodiversity, Evolution and Biogeography of Plants, 58(3), 245-262.

Fresh sap juice could reduce fever?

Hodgsonia macrocarpa

Local Name: Akar terua 

Common Name: Lard Seed

Family: Cucurbitaceae

Habitat: Riverbanks, moist places in primary and disturbed forests, forest fringes, and roadsides, mostly near riversides and at elevations from 100 – 250 metres

Description: A woody climber with extremely bitter bark. Leaves large, palmately 3 – 5 lobed. Flowers large, both male & female flowers are distinct, outside brown, inside yellow. Fruit 4 – 5 inch wide, depressed globose, red-brown, closely tomentose, 12 grooved with usually six seeds that are edible and very rich in oil.

Plant part used: Plant sap

Preparation: Drinking directly once cut in the forest and fed into a cup

Administration: About ¼ of a cup once 

Symptoms: Fever, rigors

Fruit

Seeds from the fruit

Leaves

Sketching of the plant

Flower

Fruit that is cut opened

Natural medicine of diarrhea

Loval Name: Tampoi burung 

Scientific Name: Elaeocarpus ferrugineus

Common Name: Rusty Oil Fruit 

Habitat: It grows in lowland and lower montane forests up to 1200 m in altitude. 

Description: 

Growth Form- It is a tree up to 31 m tall. Its bark varies from smooth to mildly cracked. Its twigs, leaf stalks, leaf veins and flowering clusters are clothed with rusty-brown hair.
Foliage- Its spirally arranged, stalked leaves have thinly leathery leaf blades that are egg-shaped, elliptic, oblong-elliptic and about 10–27 by 6.4–15 cm. Its leaf stalks are swollen at the tip.
Flowers- Its flowering clusters are about 3–9 cm long. Its 4-merous flowers are cream to greenish and up to 0.8 cm wide.
Fruits- Its fruits are ellipsoid and 0.6–1.7 cm wide.

Plant part used: Stem bark 

Preparation: Cut in small pieces and decoction about small handful in a pot with ½ of water

Administration: 2 to 3 times/per day about ¼ of a cup until recover

Treatment: Diarrhea 

Young red leaves and flowers

Leaves