Hyptis suaveolens (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Hyptis suaveolens (L.) Poiteau

Family: Labiatae

• Ballota suaveolens L.,
• Marrubium indicum Thunb., non Burm.f.,
• Schaueria graveolens Hassk.

• Bush tea-bush (En)

• Indonesia: lampesan (Javanese), jukut bau (Sundanese), mang-kamang (Madurese)

• Malaysia: malbar hutan, selaseh hutan, pokok kemangi

• Philippines: amotan (Bicol), suob-kabayo (Tagalog), loko-loko (Bisaya)

• Thailand: kara, maeng lak kha (peninsular)

• Vietnam: é thơm, tía tô dại

Native of tropical America but now distributed and naturalized pantropically, including South-East Asia. Occasionally cultivated in Mexico and India.

The shoot tips are used as a food flavouring and the roots as an appetizer. Sometimes the whole plant is used as forage for cattle. Medicinally it has many applications: to promote lactation in women, as a stimulant, a sudorific, an antiseptic for wounds, to cure catarrh, skin complaints, and rheumatic pains. The leaves are also used to repel bedbugs. The essential oil in the leaves (0.025%) has been used as an adulterant of patchouli oil.

• Strongly aromatic, almost fetid herb, up to 2 m tall with 4-angled, much branched, hirsute stem.
• Leaves decussate, firmly herbaceous; petiole 0.5-3 cm long; blade ovate to broadly obovate, 3-5 cm × 2-4 cm, gland-dotted, margin irregularly serrulate, densely pubescent beneath.
• Inflorescence a verticillate, 2-5-flowered cyme, arranged racemosely towards the end of branches in the axil of smaller leaves; peduncle up to 1 cm long.
• Calyx campanulate, 5 mm long, in fruit up to 10 mm, strongly 5-ribbed, with 5 setaceous teeth; corolla tubular, 6-8 mm long, blue to violet, limb bilabiate, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip 3-lobed; stamens 4, included in corolla; stigma shortly bifid.
• Fruit usually consisting of 2 nutlets; nutlet narrowly oblongoid, up to 4 mm × 3 mm, faintly rugose, brown.

H. suaveolens occurs in dry open localities, along streams and roadsides, as a weed in plantations and fields, from sea-level up to 1300 m altitude, in seasonal and per-humid conditions. Flowering and fruiting is year-round. In the dry season it sheds its leaves. The pericarp of the nutlet swells to a gelatinous mass when soaked in water.

7, 10, 12, 26, 40, 56, 60.

• Backer, C.A. & Bakhuizen van den Brink Jr, R.C., 1963-1968. Flora of Java. 3 volumes. Wolters‑Noordhoff, Groningen, the Netherlands. Vol. 1 (1963), 647 pp., Vol. 2 (1965), 641 pp., Vol. 3 (1968), 761 pp.

• Brown, W.H., 1941-1943. Useful plants of the Philippines. 3 volumes. Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Technical Bulletin 10. Bureau of Printing, Manila, the Philippines. 1610 pp. (reprint, 1951-1957).

• Burkill, I.H., 1935. A dictionary of the economic products of the Malay Peninsula. 2 volumes. Crown Agents for the Colonies, London, United Kingdom. 2402 pp. (slightly revised reprint, 1966. 2 volumes. Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 2444 pp.).

• Flora Malesiana (various editors), 1950- . Series 1. Vol. 1, 4- . Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, the Netherlands.

• Heyne, K., 1927. De nuttige planten van Nederlandsch Indië [The useful plants of the Dutch East Indies]. 2nd edition, 3 volumes. Departement van Landbouw, Nijverheid en Handel in Nederlandsch Indië. 1953 pp. (3rd edition, 1950. van Hoeve, 's‑Gravenhage/Bandung, the Netherlands/Indonesia. 1660 pp.).

• Li, Hui‑Lin et al. (Editors), 1975-1979. Flora of Taiwan. 6 volumes. Epoch Publishing Company, Taipei, Taiwan. Second edition (1993- .) edited and published by the Editorial Committee of the Flora of Taiwan, Taipei, Taiwan (editor-in-chief: Huang Tseng-Chieng).

• Mansfeld, R., 1986. Verzeichnis landwirtschaftlicher und gärtnerischer Kulturpflanzen (ohne Zierpflanzen) [Register of agricultural and horticultural plants in cultivation (without ornamentals)]. Schultze‑Motel, J. et al., editors 2nd edition, 4 volumes. Springer Verlag, Berlin, Germany. 1998 pp.

P.C.M. Jansen