Pandakaki-puti – Halamang Gamot / Herbal Medicine

Scientific name: Tabernaemontana pandacaqui Poir

Tagalog: Pandakaki-puti

 Erect, branched and smooth shrub, 1-3 meters high. Leaves are short-stalked, elliptic-lanceolate to oblong-elliptic, 5-12 cms, narrowed at both ends. Inflorescence are axillary and terminal; the flowers are few. Calyx is green, ovoid, and short. Corolla is white, slender-tubed, 1.7 cm long; limb is 2 to 2.5 cm in diameter, composed of five, spreading, falcate, lanceolate lobes. Follicles are red, oblong, 2-4 cm long, and longitudinally ridged.

Distribution
Common in thickets at low altitudes.

Parts utilized
Leaves.

Medicinal uses:

• Eczema: Boil 3 cups of chopped leaves in one gallon of water for 10 minutes; add 2 gallons of hot water.Also, fry the fresh leaves in oil and apply to itchy skins lesions for symptomatic relief.
• Wound healing: Leaf juice.
• Hot Foot Baths: A local immersion bath covering the feet, ankles and legs used for a variety of conditions: To relieve head, chest and pelvic congestion; to stop nosebleeds; to relieve spasms and pains of feet and legs; to induce sweating; to relieve menstrual cramps and headaches.
• Leaves applied as cataplasm on abdomen to hasten childbirth.
• Erectile dysfunction: Recent use as “herbal viagra.” Boil 15-25 leaves in 3 glasses of water for 10 minutes; drink the decoction. (Note: Like many of the herbal medicines touted as “herbal viagra,” kampupot use is rural folkloric with no known scientific or pharmacologic basis for its claim.)
• Decoction of root and bark used for a varitety of stomach and intestinal ailments.
• The white sap of the stem is applied to thorn injuries and to hasten the surfacing of the thorn fragment.