Breynia fruticosa (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Breynia fruticosa (L.) Hook.f.

Protologue: Fl. Brit. India 5: 331 (in obs.) (1887).

• Melanthesa chinensis Blume (1825),
• Melanthesopsis lucens (Poiret) Müll. Arg. (1863),
• Melanthesopsis fruticosa (L.) Müll. Arg. (1866).

• Vietnam: bồ cu vẽ, dỏ dọt.

From China southward to Indo-China and Thailand, possibly Malaysia.

In Indo-China a decoction of the leaves is used as an antiseptic wash to clean cuts and sores. It is used in a similar way in southern China.

• A shrub or tree up to 5 m tall, glabrous.
• Leaves ovate, 2.2-7.7 cm × 1.2-3.3 cm, length width ratio about 2.3, base broadly cuneate, apex long acute to acuminate, margin often recurved, coriaceous, petiole 2-3 mm long, stipules 1.2-2.2 mm long.
• Staminate flowers 2.6-3 mm in diameter, pedicel 3.5-4.4 mm long, calyx 2.6-3.2 mm × 2.6-3 mm, yellowish to orange, lobes 0.3-0.4 mm long, androphore 2-2.2 mm high, anthers 1.2-1.4 mm long; pistillate flowers few together, 3-4 mm in diameter, pedicel 0.8-1.7 mm long, calyx 2.2-3.7 mm long, greenish, lobes 1.3-2.4 mm wide, overlapping, ovary cylindrical, 1.2-1.7 mm × 0.9-1 mm, apically often lobed, stigmas 1-1.2 mm long, free, reflexed in older flowers, often split apically.
• Fruit flattened globose, 5-7.5 mm × 6.2-8 mm, yellowish with a narrow apical crown.
• Seed 4.6-5 mm × 3 mm × 3 mm, red.

B. fruticosa is found in the understorey of mixed evergreen or deciduous forest, scrub vegetation, forest margins, roadsides and along rivers on various soils, from 300-1300 m altitude.

• [31] Airy Shaw, H.K., 1972. The Euphorbiaceae of Siam. Kew Bulletin 26: 191—363.
• [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.
• [788] Pételot, A., 1952—1954. Les plantes médicinales du Cambodge, du Laos et du Vietnam [The medicinal plants of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam]. 4 volumes. Centre National de Recherches Scientifiques et Techniques, Saigon, Vietnam.

• Breynia

• P.C. van Welzen