Polygala chinensis (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Polygala chinensis L.

Protologue: Sp. pl. 2: 704 (1753).

Family: Polygalaceae

• Polygala glomerata Lour. (1790),
• Polygala telephoides Willd. (1802).

• Indonesia: jukut malela (Sundanese), andong peturun, godong sereg (Javanese)
• Malaysia: lidah ayam
• Thailand: kham tia (north-eastern)
• Vietnam: kim bất hoán, dại kim ngưu.

From India to southern China and South-East Asia; in Malesia, it occurs in Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Java, Lesser Sunda Islands, Borneo, the Philippines and New Guinea.

In Java, an infusion of the leaves is ingested for cough and asthma, and is a constituent in a remedy for diarrhoea. An infusion of the whole herb is recommended for chronic bronchitis.

• A perennial, erect or ascending, branched, hairy herb or undershrub, up to 75 cm tall.
• Leaves very variable, broadly elliptical to lanceolate, 5-65 mm × 2-20 mm, apex acute or mucronate.
• Raceme supra-axillary, up to 1.5 cm long, few-flowered and cluster-like, bracts early caducous, minute.
• Flowers 4.5 mm long, sepals lanceolate, acuminate, mucro long, ciliate, wings asymmetrical, 5-veined, green, upper petals spathulate, white, as long as the keel, basal half inside hairy, keel more or less auriculate, appendages filiform, in 2 bundles, filaments halfway free, ovary orbicular, emarginate, ciliate, style strongly curved in the upper half, subapically strongly reflexed, stigmatic lobe inside.
• Capsule shorter and wider than wings, slightly asymmetrically orbicular, 4 mm × 4 mm, notched, wing narrow.
• Seed ovoid, at micropylar side with an unequally 3-lobed aril, black, hairy.

P. chinensis occurs in waste places, grasslands and along roadsides, normally in everwet climates, from sea-level up to 1300 m altitude.

• [74] Backer, C.A. & Bakhuizen van den Brink Jr, R.C., 1964—1968. Flora of Java. 3 volumes. Noordhoff, Groningen, the Netherlands. Vol. 1 (1964) 647 pp., Vol. 2 (1965) 641 pp., Vol. 3 (1968) 761 pp.
• [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.
• [215] Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, 1948—1976. The wealth of India: a dictionary of Indian raw materials & industrial products. 11 volumes. Publications and Information Directorate, New Delhi, India.
• [345] Ghosal, S., Chauhan, R.P.S. & Srivastava, R., 1974. Lignan and flavonol glycosides of Polygala chinensis. Plant Biochemical Journal 1(2): 64—72.
• [498] Kako, M., Miura, T., Nishiyama, Y., Ichimaru, M., Moriyasu, M. & Kato, A., 1996. Hypoglycemic effect of the rhizomes of Polygala senega in normal and diabetic mice and its main component, the triterpenoid glycoside senegin-II. Planta Medica 62(5): 440—443.
• [739] Nguyen Van Duong, 1993. Medicinal plants of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Mekong Printing, Santa Ana, California, United States. 528 pp.
• [780] Peng, W.D., 1999. Hypotensive effect of tenuifolic saponin and its mechanism. Acta Pharmacologica Sinica 20(7) 639—642.
• [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.

• Polygala

• Rina R.P. Irwanto