Botany
Gau-gau's rootstock is tuberous, depressed-rounded, up to 30 cm in diameter. Petiole is often nearly 1 meter long, hollow, 1.5 to 2 cm in diameter, and striate. Leaves are tripartite, spreading, 1 to 1.5 meters in diameter; the segments 2-fid or irregularly pinnatifid or pinnate at the base, often large, irregularly lobed. Scape is up to 1.4 meters long, hollow, tapering, green, erect, 10- to 40-flowered. Flowers are crowded at the apex, pedicelled, drooping, intermixed with very long, filiform bracts, subtended by 4 to 12 oblong, acuminate, 5 to 7 cm long, involucrate leaves. Perianth is green and purplish, about 1 cm long. Fruits are ellipsoid or ovoid, smooth, yellowish, 6-ribbed, and 3 to 4 cm long.

Distribution
In sandy soils in thickets near the sea throughout the Philippines.
Occurs in tropical Africa and Asia through Malaya to Australia and Polynesia.

Constituents
Analysis of the starch of gau-gau yielded: Moisture, 68%; starch, on wet basis, 24.03%; starch on dry basis, 75.1%; cyanogenetic glucosides, none; alkaloids, none.

Properties
Rootstock is bitter when raw.

Parts used
Rootstock.

Uses
Culinary
Used as food as tubers contain starch.
In Polynesia, gau-gau used as food for invalids, asserting it to be superior to all others.
Folkloric
Used for dysentery and diarrhea.
In India, also used for dysentery.
Used for bodyaches and headache, to stop internal hemorrhaging in the stomach and colon.
Also, applied to wounds to stop bleeding.

Availability
Wild-crafted.