Crinum latifolium (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Crinum latifolium L.

Protologue: Sp. pl. 1: 291 (1753).

Synonyms

• Crinum moluccanum Roxb. (1859).

Vernacular names

• Philippines: lirio, bakong (Tagalog)
• Thailand: waan kho daeng (Bangkok), waan raeng khokham (central)
• Vietnam: náng lá rộng, trinh nữ hoàng cung.

Distribution

Native to tropical Asia, possibly India, cultivated in Asia as an ornamental, sometimes escaped.

Uses

The bulbs are extremely acid. In India, when roasted, they are used as a rubefacient in rheumatism, or crushed on piles and abscesses to cause suppuration. The juice of the leaves is used for earache.

Observations

• A herb up to 150 m tall, bulb 8-15 cm in diameter; leaves 12-20, oblong-linear, 60-120 cm × 4-7 cm, margins distantly serrated, rough.
• Umbel 10-20-flowered, scape as long as the leaves, green or purplish-green, bracts 5-7 cm long, very broadly ovate, purplish.
• Flowers fragrant, corolla tube 10-13 cm long, curved, green, tinged with purple, lobes oblong-lanceolate, 8-13 cm × 2.5-3.5 cm, white, flushed with pale purple in median part, stamens declinate, filaments 5.5-9 cm long, white, anthers 2.5-3 cm long, yellow, becoming purple-grey, style 17-23 cm long, white.
• Capsule rarely formed, rounded, 4-5 cm in diameter.

C. latifolium is known from cultivation only.

Selected sources

• [786] 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.
• [788] Pételot, A., 1952—1954. Les plantes médicinales du Cambodge, du Laos et du Vietnam [The medicinal plants of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam]. 4 volumes. Centre National de Recherches Scientifiques et Techniques, Saigon, Vietnam.

Main genus page

• Crinum

Authors

• Wardah