Asclepias curassavica L.

DeFilipps, Robert A. & Krupnick, Gary A., 2018, The medicinal plants of Myanmar, PhytoKeys 102, pp. 1-341 : 11

Asclepias curassavica L.

Names.

Myanmar: shwedagon. English: blood flower, butterfly weed, red milkweed.

Range.

Native of New World, from Florida to South America and West Indies. Widely introduced and cultivated elsewhere.

Uses.

Leaf: Juice pressed from the leaves for use as a vermifuge, sudorific, and anti- dysenteric. Leaf and Flower: Pounded leaves and flowers used as a dressing for wounds and sores. Flower: Decoction of the flowers is styptic. Root: Employed as a purgative, emetic and anthelmintic. Also, in the form of a powder or decoction, used as an emetic and purgative, also as an astringent in dysentery.

Notes.

Medicinal uses of this species in India are discussed in Jain and DeFilipps (1991). Medicinal uses of this species in China are discussed by Duke and Ayensu (1985). The listed medicinal uses of the root are the same for China, Indo-China, the Philippines, and Guam as they are for Myanmar; on the Malay Peninsula the flowers are crushed in cold water and used in a poultice for headache ( Perry 1980). The toxic properties, symptoms, treatment and beneficial uses of this plant, parts of which are poisonous, are discussed by Nellis (1997).

The leaves contain a triterpinoid and an alkaloid. The active glycoside, asclepiadin, is poisonous, causing paralysis of the heart, and death ( Perry 1980).

References.

Nordal (1963), Perry (1980).