Johor Ethnobotany Database
Justicia gendarussa Burm.f.
Common name: Warer wilow
Local name: Daun rusa
Family: Acanthaceae
Taxonomic classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Lamiales
Family: Acanthaceae
Genus: Justicia
Species: Justicia gendarussa Burm.f.
Discription
Growth Form: A small, erect, fast-growing, branched shrub with attractive, lanceolate (shaped like a lance-head), ascending to spreading green leaves, and produces dainty white flowers.
Foliage: Leaves simple, entire, opposite, lanceolate, green, 7 to 14 cm long and 1 to 2.5 cm wide, glabrous on both sides, apex acute-acuminate.
Stems: Stems multi-branched, glabrous (smooth; not hairy or rough), terete (having a circular transverse section), thickened at and above the nodes and internodes.
Flowers: Inflorescences on spikes, up to 10 cm long and 1.5 cm across; flowers subsessile (with a slight stalk), white with purple streaks and spots inside, 1.6 to 2 cm long.
Fruits: Fruit capsules club-shaped, glabrous, 4-seeded, about 12 mm long.
Habitat
Terrestrial
Habit
Shrub (woody)
Ethnobotanical uses
Medicinal uses:
Leaves and young shoots
- to treat chronic rheumatism
- to treat pains in the head, paralysis of one side of the body and facial paralysis
- for swellings, fevers, coughs, asthma, and earache
- also used in preparations to treat gonorrhoea, amenorrhoea and malaria.
Roots - for treating rheumatism, thrush, fevers, cough, dysuria, diarrhoea, jaundice and as antivenin.
Root bark - treatment of wounds and allergies.
Whole plant - used to treat bruises