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 Botany
Marabutan is a large tree, often epiphytic with
slender aerial roots. Bark is brown and smooth. Leaves are ellipitic,
ovate or obovate, 5 to 10 cm long, the apex rounded or with short and blunt tapering points, narrowing
into a petiole 6 to 12 mm long. Male flowers are numerous, scattered,
stalkless or short-pedicelled. Female flowers are stalkless
and much smaller. Fruit is stalkless, yellow or reddish, about
1 cm in diameter.
Distribution
- In thickets and forests at low and
medium altitudes throughout the Philippines, ascending to 1,500 meters.
- Also occurs in India to southern China, in Taiwan, and through Malaya to Australia and New Caledonia.
Parts utilized
Leaves, rootlets and bark.
Constituents and properties
Study yielded a wide range of phytochemicals: sterols, terpenoids, glycoside, flavonoids, polyphenols, proteins and carbohydrates.
Properties
Leaves and bark are antirheumatic.
Uses
Folkloric
Leaves and bark used as poultice for
rheumatism.
In Concan, juice of leaves used for flatulent colic and the juice of bark used for liver diseases.
Bark juice used for liver diseases.
The rootlets are dried and powdered, mixed with salt and applied to
toothaches.
In China, adventitious rootlets used
for toothaches, for which they are dried, powdered and applied to the
decaying or aching tooth.
Studies
• Phenolic Content / Radical Scavenging Activity: Study of the leaves of eleven Ficus species growingt in Egypt were subjected to free radical scavenging activity. Six methanol extracts, including Ficus nitida showed high activity.
• Anti-Diabetic: Study of water and methanolic extracts of Ficus retusa leaves showed significant lowering of blood glucose in a dose-dependent manner. No over sign of hepatotoxicity and renotoxicity were observed in chronic toxicity studies. Results conclude the extracts present a potential and safe alternative antidiabetic treatment.
• Antioxidant / Antibacterial: Results showed the methanol extracts of bark, fruits and leaves of F. microcarpa exhibited excellent antioxidant activities and also possessed activity against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. The activities may be attributed to its high level of phenolic compounds.
Availability
Wild-crafted.
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