Reissantia cassinoides (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Reissantia cassinoides (DC.) Ding Hou

Family: Celastraceae

Synonyms

• Hippocratea beccarii Tuyn.,
• H. glaga Korth.

Vernacular names

• Indonesia: areuy mangender (Sundanese).

Distribution

Peninsular Thailand, southern Sumatra, Bangka, West Java, Timor, and Borneo (Sabah, Sarawak).

Uses

Used as fuelwood. The scorched leaves are used as an ingredient of sambal, and medicinally, mixed with Alyxia sp. ("adas pulasari"), against rheumatism. The juice from the stem is drunk against fever.

Observations

• Liana.
• Leaves decussate, broadly elliptical to ovate-oblong, 7-15 cm long, margin entire or remotely crenulate.
• Inflorescence dichotomously cymose, with supplementary branchlets in the dichotomies, 4.5-8.5 cm long.
• Flowers subsessile, small; calyx divided almost to the base; petals 5, pale yellow or yellowish-green; disk inconspicuous; stamens 3; ovary 3-celled, with 4-8 ovules in each cell.
• Fruit a capsule.

R. cassinoides occurs in lowland forest up to 500 m altitude.

Selected sources

• Flora Malesiana (various editors), 1950-. Series 1. Volume 1, 4-. Kluwer, Dordrecht & Flora Malesiana Foundation, Leiden, the Netherlands.
• Heyne, K., 1950. De nuttige planten van Indonesië [The useful plants of Indonesia]. 3rd Edition. 2 volumes. W. van Hoeve, the Hague, the Netherlands/Bandung, Indonesia. 261, 1450 pp.

Authors

• M.S.M. Sosef & L.J.G. van der Maesen