Premna herbacea (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

1, plant habit; 2, flower; 3, opened flower; 4, fruit (Iskak Syamsudin)

Premna herbacea Roxb.

Protologue: Fl. Ind. (Carey ed.) 3: 80 (1832).

Synonyms

• Pygmaeopremna humilis Merr. (1910),
• Pygmaeopremna herbacea (Roxb.) Moldenke (1941).

Vernacular names

• Thailand: khaang hua lek (Chiang Mai), phaen din yen (Chiang Rai), som kang (Prachin Buri)
• Vietnam: cách cỏ.

Distribution

From Pakistan, Nepal and India, through Burma (Myanmar), Indo-China, southern China, Thailand, the Malesian region (the Philippines, the Lesser Sunda Islands (Sumba), Sulawesi, New Guinea) to Australia; cultivated as a medicinal plant in India and Sri Lanka.

Uses

The juice from roots and rhizomes is used in India to treat dropsy, cough, asthma, fever, rheumatism and cholera. Ripe fruits are occasionally eaten in northern India.

Observations

• A low-growing perennial herb or a dwarf undershrub up to 15(-30) cm tall, most of the stem underground with creeping woody rhizome, the aboveground part slender and simple or with single dichotomous branching.
• Leaves obovate, (2.5-)5-12(-15) cm × (2-)3-7(-10) cm, dentate or crenate-undulate in the upper half, subglabrous, sessile or subsessile, lowest pair lying flat on the ground.
• Flowers with pedicel 1.5-2 mm long, corolla white or greenish-white.
• Fruit obovoid-globose, 5-8(-10) mm long, green turning black.

P. herbacea is particularly characteristic of open grasslands exposed to periodic fire.

Selected sources

• [972] Moldenke, H.N. & Moldenke, A.L., 1983. Verbenaceae. In: Dassanayake, M.D. & Fosberg, F.R. (Editors): A revised handbook to the flora of Ceylon. Vol. 4. Amerind Publishing Co., New Delhi, India. pp. 196-487.
• [991] Munir, A.A., 1984. A taxonomic revision of the genus Premna L. (Verbenaceae) in Australia. Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens 7(1): 1-44.

Main genus page

• Premna (Medicinal plants)

Authors

• L.B. Cardenas