Botany
Baket is a shrub that grows from 1 to 3 meters high. Young branches are four-angled, reddish or pinkish. Leaves are ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 4 to 8.5 cm in length, 2 to 4 cm in width, blunt or rounded at the base and pointed at the tip. Flowers are small, about 2 mm long, greenish to reddish, borne on simple racemes 6 to 15 cm long. Fruit is composed of five very small cocci surrounded by fleshy, persistent petals and sepals of a bluish-black color, giving a berrylike appearance.
Distribution
Found in ravines, at al altitude of 1,400 to 2000 meters in Bontoc, Lepanto and Benguest in the Mountain Province.
Constituents
- Poisonous glucoside isolated from the leaves and fruit.
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Study yields coriamyrtin 0.176 % in the fruit, 0.009% in the leaves and 0.041 % in the stems.
- Coriamyrtin is the same toxin found in high concentration in the berries Coriaria myrtifolia, recognized as one of the most neurotoxic plants in the western Mediterranean area.
Properties
Plant known to be toxic and poisonous.
Uses
Folkloric
No reported folkloric medicinal use in the Philippines.
In Taiwan, used as folk medicine for gastrointestinal and uterine cancer.
Others
- Decoction of leaves and fruits known to be deadly poisonous.
- Common in pasture in the Mountain Province, has caused the death of cattle.
Toxicity
Coriamytrin: Coriamyrtin is the same toxin found in high concentration in the berries Coriaria myrtifolia, recognized as one of the most neurotoxic plants in the western Mediterranean area - a few berries may induce digestive and neurologic manifestations including seizures, coma and apnea.
Coriatin: Coriatin, isolated from the fruit juice is considered to be an analog of coriamyrtin.
Tutin: Several studies have reported tutin as a major neurotoxin in the New Zealand shrubs of the genus Coriaria. Tutin has been isolated from the acetone extracts of achenes from the Coriaria japonica berries.
Studies
• Phytochemicals: (1) Study yielded phytosterols, ellagic acid 3,3'-dimethyl ether, coriamyrtin, b-tutin, naringenin, ursolic acid and a new triterpenoic acid, 20-epibryonolic acid. (2) Further studies of roots and fruits yielded corianin, 7-hydroxycoumarin, ursolic acid, coriamyrtin, tutin, angustiloin, quercetin and kaempferol.
• Toxic Principle / Coriatin: Coriatin, isolated from the fruit juice, was considered to be an analog of coriamyrtin. The relationship between coriatin and coriamyrtin is considered to be analogous to that between picrotin and picrotoxinin.
Availability
Wild-crafted.
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