Wild hops

Overview

Wild hops is native to a broad area in South and South-East Asia, from Pakistan in the West, to Eastern China and the Japanese Ryuku islands in the Northeast, and South to Irian Jaya (Indonesia) and Timor-Leste. The plant is harvested from the wild for local use as a food, medicine and source of material for stuffing pillows, It is sometimes grown as an ornamental.

Vernacular Names

Panapanarahan (Tagalog-Philippines), Da bao ye qian jin ba (Chinese), Seringan (Malaysia), Ham-pinna (Sri Lanka), Top mo bong tron (Vietnamese), Kusrunt (India), Sainfoin de Bengale (French).

Agroecology

This tropical and subtropical plant tolerates mean annual rainfall as low as 800 mm, but prefers more than 1,500 mm for good growth, and a dry season of less than four months. Grows well on freely draining and fertile sites but may tolerate a diverse range of soils including poor and acidic soils.

Morphology

• Leaves - simple, ovate to oblong, 6 to 14 cm in length, round at the base, pointed at the tip.
• Racemes - terminal, at the axils of the leaves, 5 to 15 cm long, composed of numerous, thin, rounded or kidney-shaped, folded, imbricated, green bracts, about 1.5 to 2.5 cm long, enclosing the fascicles or dwarfed cymes of smallflowers. Rachis of the racemes are zigzag.
• Corolla - yellowish-green, with a tinge of purple, about 8 mm long.
• Pods - swollen, oblong, 1 cm long, containing 2 seeds.

Cultivation

• Propagated vegetatively by cuttings.
• Propagated generatively by seeds. Once the seeds have been dried for storage, they may benefit from scarification before sowing to speed up and improve germination.

Chemical Constituents

Alkaloids, glycosides, saponins, phenolic compounds, tannins, amino acids, phytosterols, lipids, flavonoids, glycosides,chalcones, epoxychromenes, pterocarpans, and steroids.

Traditional Medicinal Uses

Its reported pharmacological activities include antioxidant, antimicrobial, immune-regulatory, antiulcerogenic, anthelmintic, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, anticonvulsant, cholesterol-lowering, estrogenic, and anticancer.

• In India, one seed a month is chewed by women as a contraceptive.
• The root is used in the treatment of indigestion, fevers epilepsy and hysteria, to induce sleep and to relieve pain.
• A paste made from the root is applied topically to treat swellings.
• Decoction or infusion of leaves and flowers is used for tuberculosis.
• Decoction of leaves is used for postpartum baths and for rheumatism.
• In Malaya, leaves decoction is administered after childbirth and for bathing.
• In Java-Indonesia, leaves decoction is used internally and externally as a vermifuge for children.
• In Bangladesh, leaf juice is used to treat worms. Marma tribe used the plant as fly repellent.
• In Nepal, root juice is taken twice daily for 7 days for diarrhea and dysentery.
• In Trinidad and Tobago, it is used for kidney stones and other urinary problems, gall stones, and cooling.