Agoago – herbal medicine

AGOAGO

 

 LORANTHUS PENTANDRUS Linn.

Loranthus crassus Hook. F.

Loranthus farinosus Griff.

Loranthus farinosus Desv.

Loranthus venosus Bl.

Loranthus flavus Bl.

Loranthus rigidus DC.

Loranthus shawianus Elm.

Loranthus zimmermanni Warb.

Dendrophthoe farinosus Mart.

Dendrophthoe luscobotrya Miq.

Dendrophthoe venosus Mart.

Dendrophthoe pentandra Miq.

Scurrula venosa G. Don

Scurrula pentandra G. Don.

Elytranthe rigida G. Don.

Elytranthe farinosa G. Don.

 

Local names: Agoago (Tagb.); bogto (Tagb.).

 

Agoago is found on trees at low and medium altitudes in Zambales Province, Luzon; and in Palawan. It also occurs from India to southern China and southward to Sumatra, Java, and Borneo.

 

The plant has strong, gray, and terete branches. The leaves are rarely opposite, petioled, elliptic-oblong or lanceolate, and rarely obovate, 5 to 20 centimeters long, and 2.5 to 12 centimeters wide, with pointed or nearly obtuse apex. The flowers are in densely crowded, scurfy, axillary, very short recemes, and about 1.5 centimeters long. The bracts are cupular. The calyx tube is cylindrical to urceolate and 1.5 to 2 millimeters long, the calyx-limb is 5-toothed. The corolla is straight, with the tube dilated below and equally 5-cleft at the middle; and with linear, pointed lobes. The fruit is oblong-ovoid, 10 millimeters in length, and 6 millimeters in diameter.

 

Wester records that the stem with leaves contains a glucoside, quercitrine (C7H20O11); and that the wax, on saponification, yields melissylalcohol.

According to Burkill the leaves are pounded and made into a poultice for small cores, ulcers, etc. Burkill and Haniff report that a decoction of the leaves is administered in Perak after childbirth, as a protective medicine.

Source:BPI