Mongoose Plant

Overview

Ophiorrhiza mungos is native to India, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, Indonesia, Malaya, Myanmar, Nicobar Island, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. The plant is harvested from the wild for local use as a medicine. A paste made of the scrapings of the stem is used in the production of scabbards and guitars.

Vernacular Names

Sarpari (Assamese-India), She gen cao (Chinese).

Agroecology

Grows in primary and secondary forest, in moist localities; at elevations up to 400 metres.

Morphology

• Roots - rooting at lower nodes.
• Stems - glabrescent to puberulent. 
• Leaves - 7-15 x 3-6 cm, elliptic or elliptic-lanceolate, base attenuate, apex acuminate, chartaceous, hirsute on veins below; petiole to 1.5 cm; stipules subulate, 3-5 mm long, 2-fid at tip.
• Flowers - flowers in terminal branched, scorpioid cymes, dense. Peduncle to 2.5 cm long, rusty pubescent. Calyx tube 1 mm long; lobes obscure. Corolla 0.8-1 cm long, white with pink shades on lobes.
• Fruit - capsule 2.5-3 long, 4-6 mm wide, obcordate, laterally compressed, glabrous, dehiscence loculicidal.
• Seeds - many, angular.

Cultivation

Generative propagation is by seed.

Chemical Constituents

Alkaloids (camptothecin, hydroxyl camptotheicin, 10-methoxy camptothecin), glycosides, phytosterols, phenolic compounds, tannins, hydrocyanic acid, and flavonoids.

Traditional Medicinal Uses

• The bark of the root is said to be laxative and sedative.
• A decoction of the leaves, roots and bark make an agreeable, bitter tonic and stomachic.
• The plant is used as a poultice for keeping the skin moist and soft.
• It has also been shown to have potentially useful activity against pathogenic protozoa such as Leishmania donovani and Trypanosoma brucei, which cause Leishmaniasis and sleeping sickness.
• It is used in China against cancers of the neck and head.
• It is also possess antivirus activity against Herpes simplex virus.