Amomum villosum (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

1, plant base with infructescence; 2, part of leafy stem; 3, flower (Achmad Satiri Nurhaman)

Amomum villosum Lour.

Protologue: Fl. cochinch.: 4 (1790).

• Amomum echinosphaera K. Schumann ex Gagnep. (1902).

• Thailand: reo dong (Trat)
• Vietnam: sa nhân, mè tré bà, dương xuân sa.

Southern China, Vietnam and Thailand; also cultivated there.

In Chinese and Vietnamese traditional medicine the fruits are used to treat indigestion, diarrhoea, flatulence, toothache, and as febrifuge and antiseptic. They are also used as spice and condiment.

• A large herb up to 300 cm tall, with thick rhizome.
• Leaves narrowly ovate-lanceolate, up to 40 cm × 9 cm.
• Inflorescence ascending, on peduncle up to 8 cm long, with few flowers scattered from base to top, bracts membraneous, bracteoles tubular at the base.
• Flowers with corolla tube slightly longer than calyx, labellum spoon-shaped to almost circular and concave with emarginate apex, white with prominent middle vein, anther with a 3-lobed appendage having ear-shaped side lobes.
• Fruit up to 2 cm long, reddish-brown and covered by small flexuous spines, difficult to break into 3 fragments.

A. villosum occurs in forest, often in mountainous areas, and usually on wet soils.

• Gagnepain, F. 1908. Zingibéracées [Zingiberaceae]. In: Gagnepain, F. (Editor): Flore générale de l'Indo Chine [General flora of Indo China]. Vol. 6. Masson & Cie, Paris, France. pp. 25-121.
• Nguyen Van Duong, 1993. Medicinal plants of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Mekong Printing, Santa Ana, California, United States. 528 pp.
• 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.
• Zhou, S., 1993. Cultivation of Amomum villosum in tropical forests. Forest Ecology and Management 60(1-2): 157-162.

• Amomum (Medicinal plants)

• Nguyen Quoc Binh