Rourea minor (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Rourea minor (Gaertner) Alston

Protologue: in Trimen, Handb. Fl. Ceylon 6(2): 67 (1931).

Family: Connaraceae

Rourea minor (Gaertner) Alston - 1, flowering twig; 2, infructescence; 3, variation in leaflets

• Rourea santaloides (Vahl) Wight & Arnott (1834),
• Santalodes floridum (Jack) O. Kuntze (1891),
• Santalodes pulchellum (Planch.) O. Kuntze (1891),
• Rourea erecta Merr. (1909),
• Santaloides erectum Schellenb. (1910).

• Malaysia : akar nyamuk, akar sembelit (Peninsular)
• Philippines: kamagsa, gikos-gikos (Tagalog)
• Vietnam: dộc chó, tróc cẩu.

From tropical Africa, Madagascar, to Sri Lanka, continental South-East Asia, throughout Malesia (except the Lesser Sunda Islands east of Bali) to northern Australia, New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, Fiji and Samoa.

In Peninsular Malaysia, the plant is used as a slight aperient. A decoction of the wood is taken as a post-partum medicine and in fever. The root is rubbed on sore places in the mouth of children with thrush. In the Philippines a decoction of the roots is used as a uterine tonic and a depurative. The boiled pounded root or the seed is mixed in dog food to poison them. The fresh or dried leaves in decoction are used to cure gastralgia and are an absorbent. In Indo-China, the bark of the stem and the leaves are considered tonic and diuretic, and a decoction is prescribed as a post-partum tonic. The fresh arilloid of the ripe fruits can be eaten.

• A large liana up to 26 m long, stem up to 15 cm in diameter, rarely a small tree or shrub, twigs glabrous.
• Leaves unifoliolate to 9-jugate, leaflets suborbicular or ovate to lanceolate, terminal one sometimes obovate, 1-25 cm × 0.5-10 cm, base acute to cordate, oblique to equilateral, apex short and broad to caudate, acuminate, acumen blunt.
• Inflorescence in the upper leaf-axils or pseudo-terminal, consisting of 1-5 axes, central axis up to 20 cm long, loosely paniculate to subracemose, many-flowered.
• Calyx 2-3 mm long, minutely tomentose to glabrous, corolla 4-7.5 mm long.
• Follicle oblique-ellipsoid to oblique-ovoid, straight to curved, 1-3 cm × 0.3-1 cm, dehiscing with a ventral lengthwise slit or circumscissile at base.

R. minor occurs in habitats ranging from secondary forest and bamboo-forest to primary rainforest, and swamps to coastal rocks, with a preference for more open locations, from sea-level up to 1800 m altitude.

• [135] 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.
• [312] Flore du Cambodge, du Laos et du Viêtnam [Flora of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam](various editors), 1960—. Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France.
• [407] 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.
• [739] Nguyen Van Duong, 1993. Medicinal plants of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Mekong Printing, Santa Ana, California, United States. 528 pp.
• [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.
• [825] Ramiah, N., Prasad, N.B.R. & Abraham, K. 1976. Rapanone and leucopelargonidine from the roots of Rourea santaloides. Journal of the Institute of Chemistry (Calcutta) 48: 196.
• [838] A revised handbook to the flora of Ceylon (various editors), 1980—2000. Volume 1—9. Amerind Publishing Co., New Delhi, India. Volume 10—14. A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

• J.L.C.H. van Valkenburg