Alpinia rafflesianum (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Alpinia rafflesianum Wallich

Protologue: Wall. Cat. no. 6575 (1832).

• Languas rafflesiana (Wallich) Burkill (1935).

• Malaysia: puar mengkang, tepus kijai.

Malaysia.

In Peninsular Malaysia the leaves are used for poulticing boils.

• A somewhat slender herb, 1-1.2 m tall.
• Leaves lanceolate, up to 30 cm × 7.5 cm, pubescent.
• Panicle short, compact, 5-10 cm long, 7.5 cm in diameter.
• Calyx cup-shaped, 1.2 cm long, red, corolla tube nearly twice as long, lobes orange, red-tipped, up to 3 cm long, labellum broadly ovate, orange, darker veined, staminodes 2, short, apex purple.
• Capsule globose, about 1 cm in diameter, hairy, green.

A. rafflesianum is rather common in secondary forest from sea-level up to 1200 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.
• [381] Habsah, M., Amran, M., Mackeen, M.M., Lajis, N.H., Kikuzaki, H., Nakatani, N., Rahman, A.A., Ghafar & Ali, A.M., 2000. Screening of Zingiberaceae extracts for antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 72(3): 403—410.
• [841] Ridley, H.N., 1922—1925. The flora of the Malay Peninsula. 5 volumes. Government of the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States. L. Reeve & Co, London, United Kingdom.
• [941] Sirat, H.M., Rahman, A.A., Itokawa, H. & Morita, H., 1996. Constituents of the rhizomes of two Alpinia species of Malaysia. Planta Medica 62(2): 188—189.

• Alpinia (Medicinal plants)

• Halijah Ibrahim