Aglaia odorata (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Aglaia odorata Lour.

Protologue: Fl. Cochinch. 1: 173 (1790).

• Aglaia chaudocensis Pierre (1896),
• Aglaia duperreana Pierre (1896),
• Aglaia oblanceolata Craib (1926).

• Chinese rice-flower (En)
• Indonesia: pacar cina (Sumatra, Java), bunga maniran (Kalimantan), pacar culam (Java, Moluccas)
• Malaysia: me shui lan (Chinese, Peninsular), chulan, pokok telur belangkas (Peninsular)
• Philippines: cinamomo (Sp), sinamomong-sunsong (Tagalog)
• Burma (Myanmar): thanatka-wa
• Cambodia: trayang
• Laos: 'khai¹pou
• Thailand: homklai (peninsular), khayong (northern), prayong (central).
• Vietnam: ngâu, hoa ngâu.

Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Vietnam, Hainan (China) and Thailand; possibly in Laos and the Moluccas. Cultivated in India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra and Java.

The flowers are applied externally to the body after childbirth or internally against fever, and they are used for scenting tea and cigarettes, and to perfume clothes. In Indonesia, an infusion of the leaves is drunk as a tonic to treat excessive menses and venereal diseases. In the Philippines, a decoction of the roots and leaves is used as a tonic. The flowers and leaves are used in Vietnam to treat fever, asthma and jaundice. The leaves are considered expectorant, stimulant and antipyretic, and they are used to treat convulsions and menorrhagia. The wood is excellent for turnery. More important is its use as an ornamental, e.g. in hedges.

A shrub or small tree up to 10 m tall.

• Leaflets 3-5(-7), opposite, with 5-9 pairs of secondary veins, usually smooth and glabrous or occasionally with few yellowish-brown stellate scales with a fimbriate margin below.
• Flowers 5-merous, anthers 5, style-head ovoid or narrowly ovoid, longitudinally ridged and with 2 small apical lobes.
• Fruit indehiscent, 1-locular.

A. odorata occurs scattered but is locally common and found in evergreen primary and secondary forest, sometimes along the coast, up to 700 m altitude.

78, 104, 185, 234, 302, 481, 574, 676. timbers

121, 182, 247, 298, 328, 395, 505, 541, 671, 695, 760, 805. medicinals

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• Sri Hayati Widodo