English: China rose, Hibiscus Tagalog: Gumamela

Gumamela is cultivated as an ornamental flower throughout the Philippines. It is common on Mt. Banahaw. Gumamela flowers are used as an expectorant in bronchitis, for general coughs, and as a refrigerant drink in fevers.

Description:

• An erect, much-branched, glabrous shrub, 1 to 4 m high.
• Leaves: glossy green, ovate, acuminate, pointeed, coarsely-toothed, 7 to 12 cm long, alternate, stipulate.
• Flowers: solitary, axillary, very large. Outermost series of bracteoles 6, lanceolate, green, and 8 mm long or less. Calyx green, 2 cm long, lobes ovate. Petals commonly red, obovate, entire, rounded tip, and imbricate. Stamens forming a long staminal tube enclosing the entire style of the pistil and protruding out of the corolla. Ovary 5-celled, styles 5, fused below.
• Fruits: capsules, loculicidally 5-valved, but rarely

Medicinal Use:

• Mumps, infection of the urinary tract: use dried drug materials 15 to 30 gms, boil to decoction and drink.
• For abscesses, carbuncles and boils: crush fresh leaves and poultice the infected area. Also, pound flower buds into a paste and apply to external swellings; also used for boils, cancerous swellings and mumps.
• Decoction of roots, barks, leaves and flowers used as an emollient.
• Decoction from roots of red and white-flowered plants used as an antidote for poison.
• Bark is an emmenagogue; also used to normalize menstruation.
• Seeds used as a stimulant and for cramps.
• Decoction of leaves for fevers.
• For headaches, an infusion of leaves or poultice of leaves.
• Leaves are mildly laxative.
• Mucilage during labor.
• Red flowers are purgative; when taken with papaya seeds, may be abortive.
• Infusion of leaves as an expectorant in bronchitis.
• Hair stimulant: oil made by mixing the juice of fresh petals and olive oil for stimulating hair growth.
• In Costa Rica, used as a purgative.
• In Venezuela, used to treat tumors.
• In the Carribean, used as analgesic, anti-inflammatory.
• In the Dominican Republic, used to treat hematomas.