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12(1): Medicinal and poisonous plants 1

Rauvolfia verticillata (Lour.) Baillon

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

Bull. Soc. Linn. Paris 1: 768 (1888).

Dissolena verticillata Lour. (1790), Rauvolfia chinensis (Spreng.) Hemsl. (1889), Rauvolfia perakensis King & Gamble (1907).

Indonesia: salung-salung (Sumatra). Malaysia: pokok batu pelir kambing (Peninsular). Thailand: cheepuk (northern), chaek (Trang), yaa kae haak khom (Chiang Mai). Vietnam: ba g[aj]c v[of]ng, t[is]ch ti[ee]n, sam t[oo].

India, Sri Lanka, Burma (Myanmar), Indo-China, southern China, Taiwan, Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Java, Lombok, Borneo and the Philippines (Luzon).

The root is valued in Indo-Chinese and Chinese medicine as hypertensive and sedative. Fresh leaves are applied externally to treat snake bites, wounds and inflamed eyes.

A shrub up to 3 m tall; leaves (2-)3-verticillate, elliptical, (8-)10-20 cm x (2-)4-6 cm, petiole up to 1.5 cm long; flowers with narrow cylindrical corolla tube much longer than calyx; fruit consisting of 1-2 elliptical drupelets. Rauvolfia verticillata occurs in lowland to montane rain forest and monsoon forest, up to 1700 m altitude, often in open places in hills and mountains, e.g. along rivers, near villages and rice fields.

[49] Allen, E.F., 1958. Notes on the cultivation of Rauwolfia in Malaya. Malayan Agricultural Journal 41(2): 100-105.
[118] Banerjee, N. & Sharma, A.K., 1983. Cytotaxonomy, tissue culture and alkaloids of Rauwolfia L. Nucleus 26(3): 197-207.
[202] Burkill, I.H., 1966. A dictionary of the economic products of the Malay Peninsula. Revised reprint. 2 volumes. Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Vol. 1 (A-H) pp. 1-1240. Vol. 2 (I-Z) pp. 1241-2444.
[850] Li, H.-L., 1978. Apocynaceae. In: Li, H.-L., Liu, T.-S., Huang, T.-C., Koyama, T. & DeVol, C.E. (Editors): Flora of Taiwan. Vol. 4. Epoch Publishing Co., Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China. pp. 202-221.
[879] Ly, T.D., 1986. Die Familie Apocynaceae Juss. in Vietnam. Teil 2: Spezieller Teil (1) [The family Apocynaceae Juss. in Vietnam. Part 2: special part (1).]. Feddes Repertorium 97(7-8): 405-468.
[905] Markgraf, F., 1984. Florae Malesianae Praecursores LXIV. Apocynaceae VI. Rauvolfia. Blumea 30: 157-167.
[1035] Nguyen Van Duong, 1993. Medicinal plants of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Mekong Printing, Santa Ana, California, United States. 528 pp.
[1564] Whitmore, T.C. & Ng, F.S.P. (Editors), 1972-1989. Tree flora of Malaya. A manual for foresters. 2nd Edition. 4 volumes. Malayan Forest Records No 26. Longman Malaysia Sdn. Berhad, Kuala Lumpur & Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

Tran Dinh Ly & Pham Duy Mai

Tran Dinh Ly & Pham Duy Mai, 1999. Rauvolfia verticillata (Lour.) Baillon. In: de Padua, L.S., Bunyapraphatsara, N. and Lemmens, R.H.M.J. (Editors): Plant Resources of South-East Asia No 12(1): Medicinal and poisonous plants 1. PROSEA Foundation, Bogor, Indonesia. Database record: prota4u.org/prosea