English: Potato Vine, Swamp Cabbage;
Tagalog: Kangkong
A smooth, widely spreading vine, with the stems trailing on mud or floating on water. Leaves are oblong-ovatem 7-14 cm long, with a pointed tip and heart- or arrow-shaped base, long petiole, the margins entire or angular, and sub-lobed. The peduncles are erect, 2.5 to 5 cm long, with 1 or 2 flowers in the axis of the leaves. Sepals are green, oblong, about 8 mm. The corolla is narrowly bell-shaped, about 5 mm long, and purplish with the tube deeper purple inside.
Distribution
Throughout the Philippines in stagnant streams, fresh-water swamps, and pools.
Parts used and preparation
Young leaves and stems
Nutritional Uses
Young leaves and stems eaten as a leafy vegetable.
Young stems popular as achara (native pickles) ingredient.
Good sources of iron, calcium, vitamins B and C.
Tops are mildly laxative. The purplish variety used for diabetes because of assumed insulin-like principle it contains. Juice used as emetic. Dried latex is purgative. Poultice of buds used for ringworm.
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