Botany
Tarambulo is a small, suberect, prickly, hairy herb, 0.5 to 1.5 meters high. Leaves are broadly ovate, 15 to 20 centimeters long, 12 to 23 centimeters wide, lobed at the margins, and densely covered with stiff wooly hairs above and wooly hairs and prickly spines on the nerves beneath; the lobes are triangular and 2.5 to 4 centimeters deep. Flowers are borne on lateral racemes. Calyx is shortly funnel-shaped, with ovate-triangular lobes. Corolla is densely wooly outside, white, oblong-loved, 2 to 2.5 centimeters long. Fruit is a berry, yellow, globose, 2.5 to 3.5 centimeters in diameter, densely covered with needlelike hairs, and many-seeded.
Distribution
- Throughout the Philippines, in waste places and old clearings, at low and medium altitudes, ascending to 2,000 meters.
- Also occurs in India to southern China and Malaya.
Constituents
- Seeds yield a yellow colored oil with a fatty acid composition of palmitic acid (12.5%), stearic acid (9.95%) oleic acid (39.83%) and linoleic acid (38.06%).
Distribution
- Throughout the Philippines
Uses
Culinary
In India, Thailand and Malaysia, fruit widely used as a sour-relish in curries.
In Thailand, a special kind of sauce called nam prek is made with the fruit.
Folkloric
- In the Philippines, leaves used as poultices for swellings.
- Decoction of roots used for body pains and discomfort after meals.
- Decoction used for syphilis.
- Roots used externally for baths for fevers and as poultice for itches, cuts, wounds and bruises.
- Seeds used for toothaches – burned and the fumes inhaled.
- In Bangladesh, used for coughs, asthma, fever, vomiting, sore throat and gonorrhea.
- In India, used for female sex disorders.
Studies
• Seed Fat: Seeds yield a yellow colored oil, containing palmitic acid, stearic acid, oleic acid and linoleic acid.
Availability
Wild-crafted.
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