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 Botany
Tan-ag is a tree growing 8 to
15 meters high. Leaves are alternate, broadly ovate, 10 to 20 centimeters long, with
pointed tip and heart-shaped base, with petioles 5 to 20 centimeters long. Flowers are pink, about
8 millimeters long, borne on panicles 20 to 40 centimeters long, terminating the branches.
Fruit is a thin-walled, inflated capsule about 2 centimeters long.
Distribution
- Common in thickets, secondary
forests, and deserted clearings at low and medium altitudes throughout the Philippines.
- Also occurs in India to tropical Africa and to Malaya.
Constituents
- Yields triterpenes (beta-amyrin, bauerenol, baurenol acetate, betulin, lupeol acetate), fatty acids, flavonol (kaempherol, nicotiflorin, quercetin, rutin, vitexin), coumarin (scopoletin), steroid (beta-sitosterol).
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Leaves and bark contain cyanogenic
compounds that provide lice-killing properties.
- Extracts of leaves have shown antitumour activity against mice-sarcoma.
- Scopoletin, keampferol and quercetin have been isolated from the leaves.
Properties
- Lice-killing.
- Considered anti-tumor, antibacterial (weak), chronotropic, histaminergic, spasmolytic.
Parts utilized
Bark and leaves.
 Uses
Edibility / Nutritional
- Young leaves and sprouts
eaten as vegetable.
Folkloric
- Decoction of leaves
used for scabies and itching and all forms of dermatitis.
- Used for psoriasis.
- Bark and leaves used in Malaya as hairwash to destroy lice.
- In eastern Malaysia juice of leaves used as eyewash.
- In Malaya, Indonesis and
Papua, New Guinea, used to treat scabies.
- Bark is scraped, mixed with water, filtered and drunk to relieve coughs and tuberculosis.
- Crushed leaf rubbed on skin diseases and rubbed on the forehead to relieve headaches.
- Juice from young leaves, mixed in water, drunk to treat bee stings.
Others
- Fiber: Bast fibers used for
tying or rope making used for tethering livestock. The rope is durable
during rainy weather.
- Poison: In Marinduque, bark is reportedly used to poison eels.
- Repellent: Leaves are used as rice field insects repellent.
- Ornamental: Ornamental use for its pink-colored panicles.
Studies
• Cycloartane Triterpenoids / Hepatoprotective: Study isolated four new cycloartane triterpenoids with known gardenolic acid from K hospita. The compounds showed promising hepatoprotective effects on nitrofuratoin-induced cytotoxicity in human liver-derived Hep G2 cells.
• Antioxidant / Cytotoxicity: Study of leaf extracts of K hospita showed potent antioxidant activity (96% compared to vitamin C, 98 %) and moderate dose-dependent cytotoxicity on HepG2 liver cancer cells.
Availability
Wild-crafted. |
