Botany
Dalunot is a dioecious shrub or small tree attaining a height of 3 to 5 meters. Leaves are ovate, 7 to 8 cm long, 3 to 10 cm wide, with the tip tapering to a point and the base rounded or somewhat heart-shaped, the margins toothed, the upper surface green, slightly hairy and a little rough, the lower surface pale and rather densely covered with soft hairs. Male flowers are borne in dense, axillary fascicles, with greenish-white and exerted styles. Female flowers are small and greenish, in dense, axillary, hemispheric heads, 5 to 6 mm in diameter, with long-exerted styles. Fruit is white, very soft and fleshy, depressed, nearly spherical, about 1 cm in diameter, and consissts of many small achenes immersed in the fleshy perianths.

Distribution
In thickets and secondary forests at low and medium altitudes. In Benguet, it ascends to an altitude of 2,000 meters.

Constituents
Phytochemical screening of leaves yielded anthrones, flavonoids, glycosidic flavonoids, phenolic compounds, steroids, tannins, triterpenes, anthraquinones and coumarins.

Parts used
Bark.

Uses
Folkloric
Bark scrapings used externally as a cataplasm for boils.

Studies
• Radical Scavenging Activity: In a study of four Philippine medicinal plants, P arborescens gave the second lowest LC50 and EC50 values for BSLA and DPPH radical scavenging activity. Extracts of the plant also showed to be active against HeLa cells

Availability
Wild-crafted.

Additional Sources and Suggested Readings
(1)
Antioxidant and cytotoxic activities and phytochemical screening of four Philippine medicinal plants / Nonita Peteros and Mylene Uy / Journal of Medicinal Plants Research Vol. 4(5), pp. 407-414, 4 March, 2010