Strychnos lucida (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Strychnos lucida R.Br.

Protologue: Prodr.: 469 (1810).

Synonyms

• Strychnos ligustrina Blume (1836).

Vernacular names

• Indonesia: bidara laut (general), dara laut (Javanese), kayu ular (Sumatra, Timor)
• Thailand: phayaa mue lek, phayaa muun lek (central), sieo duuk (northern)
• Vietnam: mã tiề láng.

Distribution

Indo-China, Thailand, eastern Java, the Lesser Sunda Islands, the southern Moluccas and northern Australia.

Uses

The bark, wood and roots are used in traditional medicine in Indonesia to treat fever, snake bites, sores, wounds, eczema, and as stomachic and vermifuge. Australian aborigines apply the fruit pulp to the skin to treat skin complaints such as scabies, rashes, burns, leprosy, sores and cuts. The roots are used to treat diabetes. Leaves and fruits are used as a fish poison in Australia.

Observations

• A shrub or small deciduous tree up to 12 m tall, bole often crooked and up to 25 cm in diameter, spiny when young, branches densely and finely lenticellate, grey, tendrils absent.
• Leaves ovate or elliptical to suborbicular, 2.5-10 cm × 1.5-6 cm, petiole 2-4 mm long.
• Inflorescence terminal, c. 10-flowered.
• Corolla 10-15 mm long, tube about 3 times as long as lobes, sometimes with a few woolly hairs inside.
• Fruit globose, 2-2.5 cm in diameter, 2-3-seeded.
• Seeds nearly disk-shaped, 12-15 mm × 10-12 mm × 2.5-5 mm, densely short pubescent.

S. lucida occurs in regions with a monsoon climate, in teak forest and other dryland forest, often in secondary forest but also in scrubs and savannas, up to 200(-400) m altitude; in Thailand also on limestone hills.

Selected sources

• [160] Bisset, N.G., 1974. The Asian species of Strychnos. Part III. The ethnobotany. Lloydia 37(1): 62-107.
• [163] Bisset, N.G. & Phillipson, J.D., 1976. The Asian species of Strychnos. Part IV. The alkaloids. Lloydia 39(5): 263-325.
• [202] Burkill, I.H., 1966. A dictionary of the economic products of the Malay Peninsula. Revised reprint. 2 volumes. Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Vol. 1 (A-H) pp. 1-1240. Vol. 2 (I-Z) pp. 1241-2444.
• [276] Conn, B.J. & Brown, E.A., 1993. Notes on Strychnos L. (Loganiaceae) in Australia. Australian Systematic Botany 6: 309-319.
• [580] Heyne, K., 1950. De nuttige planten van Indonesië [The useful plants of Indonesia]. 3rd Edition. 2 volumes. W. van Hoeve, 's-Gravenhage, the Netherlands/Bandung, Indonesia. 1660 + CCXLI pp.
• [839] Leenhouts, P.W., 1962. Loganiaceae. In: van Steenis, C.G.G.J. (General editor): Flora Malesiana. Series 1, Vol. 6. Wolters-Noordhoff Publishing, Groningen, the Netherlands. pp. 293-387.
• [957] Mitsunaga, K., Koike, K., Fukuda, H., Ishii, K. & Ohmoto, T., 1991. Ligustrinoside, a new bisiridoid glucoside from Strychnos ligustrina. Chemical and Pharmaceutical Bulletin 39(10): 2737-2738.
• [1126] Perry, L.M., 1980. Medicinal plants of East and Southeast Asia. Attributed properties and uses. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States & London, United Kingdom. 620 pp.

Main genus page

• Strychnos (Medicinal plants)

Authors

• Purwaningsih