A prostrate or climbing shrub, reaching up to 10 m or more, creeping and clinging close to walls or tree trunks by means of numerous aerial rootlets, ultimate branches 30-80 cm long, erect. Leaves dimorphous, two-ranked, on sterile branches ovate, 1.5-3 cm long and shortly petioled, on fertile branches oblong, 5-10 cm long and with long petioles. Figs solitary in the axils of leaves, pyriform, 40-60 mm long, yellow-brown pilose when young, ripening glabrous, red to dark blue. Flowers, minute, unisexual; male flowers in many rows, filling the distal half of the fig, stipitate with 2-3 stamens, female flowers sessile or shortly stipitate.

Used as a tonic and galactagogue (fruits and leaves); anthelmintic (latex)

Philippine Medicinal Herbs
PROSEA (Plant Resources of South-East Asia) Foundation

Used for treating impotence, lumbago, rheumatism, anaemia, haematuria, chronic dysentery and haemorrhoids (fruits and leaves); externally applied to carbuncles (leaves); for bed-wetting, impotency, orchitis, and irregular menstruation (fruits); rubbed on the body for dropsy (plant ash); for furuncles, rheumatism, arthritis and pains due to sprains (decoction of fruits, stem and dried leaves).