Acalypha hellwigii (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Acalypha hellwigii Warb.

Protologue: Bot. Jahrb. 18: 198 (1894).

Synonyms

• Acalypha scandens Warb. (1891) non Benth. (1854).

Vernacular names

• Papua New Guinea: bluwa (Buang, Morobe Province).

Distribution

Sulawesi and New Guinea.

Uses

In Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea, leaves are used to hold a strongly heated quartz pebble and water is directed onto a sore through a funnel of leaves. The leaves are also used as cigarette wrapper, or smoked as such. The timber is locally used for house construction.

Observations

• A scrambling climber, sprawling shrub or tree up to 5 m tall.
• Leaves narrowly ovate to elliptical, margins sharply serrate, stiff coriaceous, penninerved, petiole short.
• Female inflorescence rather lax-flowered, up to 25 cm long with short 7-11 toothed bracts.

New Guinea material is sometimes erroneously identified as A. insulana Müll. Arg., a very similar yet distinct species from Fiji. A. hellwigii is exceedingly variable and found on a wide range of soils in habitats ranging from strand vegetation, secondary scrub to primary forest from sea-level up to 2500 m altitude.

Selected sources

• [33] Airy Shaw, H.K., 1980. The Euphorbiaceae of New Guinea. Kew Bulletin Additional Series VIII. Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, United Kingdom. 243 pp.
• [35] Airy Shaw, H.K., 1982. The Euphorbiaceae of Central Malesia (Celebes, Moluccas, Lesser Sunda Is.). Kew Bulletin 37: 1—40.
• [436] Holdsworth, D.K. & Sakulas, H., 1987. Medicinal plants of the Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Part IV. The Snake River Valley. International Journal of Crude Drug Research 25(4): 204—208.

Main genus page

• Acalypha

Authors

• Arbayah H. Siregar