Dung Weed

Overview

Dung weed is native to Africa, temperate China, the Indian Subcontinent, Indo-China, and the Malay islands (Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines), Northwestern and Southwestern Pacific, Australia, Polynesia and Micronesia. An important medicinal plant, especially in South-East Asia, where the plant is commonly harvested from the wild. The plant also provides edible leaves and a dye.

Vernacular Names

Mama juana (Spanish), Ma zhi hu (Chinese), Yieo muu (Thai),Boton (Tagalog-Philippines), Tigtoni (Papua New Guinea), Kamanamana (Hawaiian), Rumput tahi babi (Malay), Rumput babi (Indonesia)

Agroecology

A. viscosum is found in open, disturbed sites and wet places along streams, in forests, thickets, and along roadsides, from sea-level to 2,100 m altitude. It grows in shady, wet areas along streams and seepages, or alongside trails in black peat or clay.

Morphology

• Stems - erect, fleshy, smooth, hairless,sparsely branched, sometimes rooting froml ower nodes.
• Leaves - thin, opposite, the upper ones alternate, oblong to broadly ovate, and 5 to15 cm long, with a pointed apex, and entire or scalloped margins.
• Flowers - very small and white, with the corolla hairy near the mouth. Inflorescence islax, the heads 5-7 mm in diameter.
• Fruit - an achene, obovate-oblong, irregularly triangular, 2.5-4 mm x 1 mm, glandular when young, after wards glabrous or warty, crowned with a pappus consisting of a few clavatesetae, usually thickened at the top and glandular.

Cultivation

• Dung weed can be propagated by seeds.
• Seedling with epigeal germination.
• It starts flowering 3 months after germination and flowers throughout the year when sufficient water is available.

Chemical Constituents

Alkaloids, α-cubebene, caryophyllene, α-chamigrene, α-caryophyllene, γ-terpinen, d-limonene, α-pinene, 2-carene, and essential oil.

Traditional Medicinal Uses

• Considered stimulant, antispasmodic, antidiarrheal, and sternutatory.
• The stems and leaves are used as an antiscorbutic.
• The leaves are used for treating palpitations, dysuria, tooth ache, aphthae and sore throats, and are also used to prevent infections after childbirth.
• The leaves are chewed in the treatment of dysentery, or combined with the leaves of Centella asiatica and Phyllanthus urinaria , are used against colic.
• The boiled leaves are rubbed on the skin to relieve itch and treat infectedsores, and the whole body is rubbed in case of fever.
• A lotion of the leaves is used to arrest baldness.
• A paste of the leaves is used as poultice on sun-burned skin, and when scorched, are applied to boils and ulcers in order to ripen them.
• In Taiwan, the whole plant is used to treat lung congestion, pneumonia, oedema and inflammation.
• Fresh juice of the plant is used to treat ear infections.
• A decoction of the root is given as a cure for stomach-ache. The roots are chewed alone or together with Piper betle leaves and ginger against cough.