It is pale yellow in color, very viscid, with a characteristic mouldy odor. The purgative dose is 10–30 grams. A small dose may purge as actively as a larger one provided that the patient drink abundantly after the administration of the drug. The best method of disguising its taste is by giving it in half a cup of very strong, hot coffee. Just before the dose, take a swallow of coffee to disguise the taste even more effectually.
Castor oil enters into the composition of elastic collodion (simple collodion, 30 grams, castor oil, 2 grams). The leaves pounded and boiled are applied as a poultice to foul ulcers.
Botanical Description.—There are two forms of this variety in the Philippines, possessing the same properties and known by the same common name: R. viridis, Müll. (R. communis, Blanco) and R. subpurpurascens, Müll.; the former is the more common and has a glabrous, fistular stem. Leaves peltate, palmately cleft in 7 or 9 lobules, lanceolate, serrate. Petioles long. Flowers greenish, monœcious, the staminate ones in large panicled clusters below the pistillate. Filaments numerous, subdivided into several anther-bearing branches. Pistillate flowers, 3 sepals, 3 styles. Seed vessel, 3 prickly capsules, containing solitary seeds.
The R. subpurpurascens is distinguished from the former by bearing 2 glandules at the base of the leaves, the mulberry color of which latter suggests its common name, Tag̃antag̃an na morado, Tag., Vis.
Habitat.—Very common in Luzon, Mindanao and other islands.
Urticaceæ.
Nettle Family.
Artocarpus integrifolia, Willd.
Nom. Vulg.—Nag̃ka, Tag.; Jack Fruit Tree, Eng.
Uses.—The huge fruit of this tree is well known to the Filipinos and well liked by them as an article of food, eaten fresh or in sweet preserves. The arils and pulpy envelopes of the seeds are the parts eaten, also the seeds themselves, boiled or roasted. According to Padre Mercado the roasted seeds have an aphrodisiac action.