? Cestrum
parqui Usteri
Local
names: Dama de noche (Sp., Tag.); huele de noche, galan de noche
(Sp.); night blooming cestrum (Engl.).
Dama de
noche is widely cultivated in the Philippines for its sweet-scented flowers,
which bloom at night. It was introduced from tropical America.
This
ornamental plant is an erect or somewhat climbing, smooth shrub usually 2 or 3
meters in height, with long, often-drooping branches. The leaves are
oblong-ovate to oblong-lanceolate, 8 to 10 centimeters in length and pointed at
the tip. The flowers are numerous, slender, yellowish-green, about 2.3
centimeters long, and borne in lax, axillary and terminal inflorescences
(cymes) 7 to 10 centimeters long.
The
leaves and fruit are official in the Mexican (3,4) Pharmacopoeias.
According
to Watt and Breyer-Brandwijk dama de noche is toxic to stock. They quote Chase
and Walsh, who report that cuttings, when eaten by animals, may produce
poisoning. The symptoms are dullness, tachycardia, high temperature suppression
of urine, and slowing of the respiratory rate. Death occurs with coma after
slight convulsions. Chase stares that in experiments the plant does not always
poison stock; he considers it toxic only when dry. He states also that cattle
will not eat the plant when it is given.
Martinez and Standley report that in Mexico an extract of the plant has been employed as an antispasmodic, especially for the treatment of epilepsy. Planchon and Collin state that in the Antilles the fruit is used for epilepsy.