Folded Nervilia

Overview

Nervilia plicata is native to tropical & subtropical Asia to North Australia. The name Nervilia refers to prominent veins that are visible on the leaves. It has long been used in the antidiabetic medicinal preparations of traditional healers of Wayanad (India). The leaf can be observed tightly, flatly spread over the forest floor.

Vernacular Names

Nilathamara (Malayalam-India). 

Agroecology

Nervilia plicata is usually found in forest floors of mid-elevation forests which receive good amount rain fall. It is also observed that the place where its found has good amount of leaf litter as well.

Morphology

• Tubers - 1.5 x 2 cm across, subglobose, white.
• Stem - 16 cm long.
• Leaf - the leaf is heart-shaped and usually of dark purplish in colour or dark green with irregularly mottled with purplish-brown, 7 x 6 cm, sessile, cordate, orbicular, obtuse, hairy, margins wavy.
• Flower - 2-flowered; bracts 5 x 2 mm, ovate-lanceolate; sepals and petals brownish, similar, 20 x 4 mm, oblong, lanceolate, acute; lip dark violet, 18 x 10 mm, elliptic, obtuse, margin wavy.

Cultivation

Generative propagation is by seed, and vegetatively by culture in vitro. 

Chemical Constituents

Alkaloids, flavonoids, tannin, phenol, triterpenoids, glycoside, cardiac glycosides, terpenoids, saponin, phenolic acid, lignin, and steroid.

Traditional Medicinal Uses

• It is used in Ayurveda medicine in the treatment of kidney pain and diabetes (lowering blood glucose).