Uvaria cordata (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Uvaria cordata (Dunal) Alston

Protologue: Trimen, Handb. Fl. Ceylon 6: 4 (1931).

Synonyms

Uvaria macrophylla Roxb. ex Wallich (1830).

Vernacular names

• Malaysia: akar pisang-pisang jantan, bunga jari hutan (Peninsular)
• Thailand: kluai muu sang (Trang), nom chaang (northern), laa-koh (Malay, Narathiwat).

Distribution

Eastern India, Sri Lanka, southern Burma (Myanmar), Indo-China, southern China, Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, New Guinea; probably also elsewhere in Malesia.

Uses

In Vietnam the roots and leaves are used to treat indigestion, diarrhoea and wounds. The fruits are eaten in India.

Observations

• A straggling shrub or large liana.
• Leaves obovate to elliptical or broadly oblong, 10-30 cm √ó 6-15 cm.
• Flowers in few-flowered cymes, with calyx almost entire or splitting less than halfway into segments and corolla c. 2.5 cm in diameter, dark red.
• Fruit consisting of several berry-like monocarps 2-3 cm long, ovoid to globose, on stalks 0.2-1.5 cm long, orange, fleshy, smooth and glabrous, containing several dark brown seeds.

U. cordata occurs in lowland forest, often in more open localities.

Selected sources

• Dassanayake, M.D. & Fosberg, F.R. (Editors), 1980-. A revised handbook to the Flora of Ceylon. Vol. 1-6. Published for the Smithsonian Institution and the National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C., by Amerind Publishing Co., Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi.

• The Wealth of India, Raw materials (various editors), 1948-1976. 11 Volumes. Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi.

121, 467, 782, 967. medicinals

Main genus page

• Uvaria

Authors

• Max Joseph Herman
• P.C.M. Jansen, J. Jukema, L.P.A. Oyen, T.G. van Lingen