1243

12(2): Medicinal and poisonous plants 2

Pipturus argenteus (J.G. Forster) Wedd.

This article should be read together with the article on the genus: Pipturus in the Handbook volume indicated above in this database.

in DC., Prodr. 16(1): 235(19) (1869).

Urtica argentea J.G. Forster (1786), Pipturus propinquus (Decne.) Wedd. (1854), Pipturus velutinus (Decne.) Wedd.(1854), Pipturus incanus (Blume) Wedd. (1869).

Indonesia: ki beunteur (Sundanese), bedreg (Javanese), lobiri (Moluccas). Papua New Guinea: evakau (Konis, New Ireland), yiwiya (Aseki, Morobe Province), helo (Tipku, Fane, Central Province).

From the Pacific Islands, northern Australia and New Guinea to the Philippines and Borneo, Java, Sumatra and the islands on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, and westward to the Seychelles.

In the Moluccas, the leaves are used for poulticing boils, burns and herpes. Sap from the bark is further taken as a gargle for thrush. On Karkar Island (Papua New Guinea), new roots are cut and the sap is allowed to drip into a container. Some of it is drunk and the rest is used to wash the body of a patient with malaria fever or a severe cough. Crushed leaves are used to treat cough in the Solomon Islands. In New Ireland, the sap of the scraped inner bark is given to women in labour. The juice of heated leaves is applied to sores. In New Britain, leaf sap is drunk and the crushed leaves rubbed on the body to relieve a fever or headache. In the Simbu Province, sap from the scraped bark together with leaves of Rubus glomeratus Blume (synonym R. ledermannii Focke) is eaten daily to soothe a bad cough. In Aseki, the rainwater collected from the leaves is used to treat asthma. In the Central Province, the bark is crushed in cold water and drunk twice daily to treat dysentery. The scraped bark is applied to spear wounds, to facilitate removal of the spear head. Root sap is also used on wounds and to soothe toothache. The cooked leaves are eaten as a vegetable. The fibre from the bark is used to make string and rope.

A dioecious shrub or tree up to 10(—20) m tall, trunk 8—20(—40) cm in diameter, bark smooth, grey, lenticellate, inner bark soft, pale yellow to green, twigs sparsely to densely hairy; leaves ovate, 8—15(—35) cm x 5—10(—25) cm, base acute, obtuse, rounded to cordate, apex acuminate, margin serrate, densely strigose, densely woolly beneath, petiole 2—12(—24) cm long, stipules 3—14 mm long; spikes or sparsely branched panicles up to 12(—20) cm long, bracteolate, flowers clustered at intervals, subsessile to sessile, cluster 3—7 mm in diameter; male flowers 4-merous; female flowers perianth urceolate, minutely 4-toothed, densely pubescent, style up to 3 mm long; achene white to brown, partially immersed in the spherical, fleshy, receptacle, up to 7 mm in diameter. Pipturus argenteus is common in disturbed habitats, especially in the eastern part of its area of distribution, from sea-level up to 1250 m altitude.

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[1030] van Valkenburg, J.L.C.H. & Ketner, P., 1994. Vegetation changes following human disturbance of mid-montane forest in the Wau area, Papua New Guinea. Journal of Tropical Ecology 10: 41—54.

J.L.C.H. van Valkenburg

van Valkenburg, J.L.C.H., 2001. Pipturus argenteus (J.G. Forster) Wedd.. In: van Valkenburg, J.L.C.H. and Bunyapraphatsara, N. (Editors): Plant Resources of South-East Asia No 12(2): Medicinal and poisonous plants 2. PROSEA Foundation, Bogor, Indonesia. Database record: prota4u.org/prosea