Kalachuchi
Posted by: Fats in: Fats, Vitamins & Minerals > Wala langThe kalachuchi branch that my partner and I got from the Veterans hospital has started budding! There were these two women cleaning the golf areas of the hospital compound who kindly helped get the branch (one of them climbed the tree to break off a branch!) and told us how to grow it.
This one is planted in a pot in my mother’s garden which I visited yesterday. There is another one (a smaller branch cut into two) here in our apartment. It hasn’t shown any signs of growth yet but it’s not dead either as far as we could tell. My partner has been looking after it. I suppose it might take a while to grow since it is quite dark in the apartment.
Kalachuchi flowers are quite fragrant, known in English as frangipani (the fragrance), and as temple flower. This one we got from Veterans has white-yellow flowers although I’ve seen others of different colors (violet, pink). I also vaguely know that kalachuchi are not favored (some superstitious belief), perhaps something to do with the term “kulasisi” (sounding very closely with kalachuchi) which means a concubine or “the other woman.”
Anyway, it was good to see the plants and flowers I’ve planted in my mom’s garden again.
September 11th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
Is the Kalachuchi able to be grown indoors as a house plant?
Where could I grt a cutting or plant to grow?
I first saw this plant in Cebu back in 1994 and have been looking for it’s fragrance
since then.
September 11th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Hi Martin, if you reside in Quezon City, kalachuchi grows almost everywhere (i.e. public parks). It’s a lovely tree - it’s not the blooming season now though, but I did see a few blooming in Fort Santiago in Manila. I don’t think the kalachuchi can make it as an indoor plant, though - it needs plenty of sunshine and space. As for cutting, if you find a tree you can ask the owner or caretaker to let you have a cutting to propagate.
That’s what we did when we saw this really lovely kalachuchi at the Veterans Memorial Hospital, and the lady gardeners were so excited to give us a cutting and even advise us on how to grow it. 
February 5th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
what is the medicinal use of kalachuchi? can i use this to make a cream that can cure certain skin aiiments?.. because i will use the said plant in our research study.
February 5th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
You can refer to StuartXchange’s website on Philippine medicinal herbs - http://www.stuartxchange.org/Kalachuchi.html - and from there you can see that kalachuchi has plenty of medicinal uses. According to the website, ” Bark contains a bitter glucoside, plumierid (2%). Latex contains resins, caoutchouc and calcium salts of plumieric acid: cerotinic acid and lupeol. Leaves contain a volatile oil” and that it’s pharmacological uses are: ” Antipyretic, diuretic, emmenagogue, febrifuge, purgative, rubefacient”
Good luck with your research! I hope that your work can help more people benefit from our local plants.
February 16th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
accordingly, it contains bitter glucoside plumierid(2%). What are the components of this stuff? Please do answer…..on monday’s our defense for our research.
February 16th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
There is a research paper on kalachuchi, and mention of “Wehmer records that the bark contains a bitter glucoside, plumierid, which was isolated by Boorsma [Medel, -Strand Plant. 13 (1894) 11]. The paper is at http://www.bpi.da.gov.ph/Publications/mp/html/k/kalachuche.htm -
As for the components of plumierid, you wlll need to check your library for that, at least you have a source (i.e. Boorsma), and chemically, you should know that a glucoside is a glycoside derived from glucose..
And if you search the Internet, it’s C21H26O12.
Let me know how your thesis turns out. Where are studying, by the way?
August 3rd, 2008 at 7:16 pm
I did a doctoral thesis on the structure of Plumierid in the laboratory of Prof. Hans Schmid at the University of Zürich in 1954-6 and published it in the Helvetica Chimica Acta. Is this any help?
August 4th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Yes, hopefully, the kids have access to your research in their libraries (here in the Philippines). Thanks for sharing your work/reference. I get numerous “last minute” requests for answers to questions that students are asked in their classes, which is good that the Internet enables - to some point - contacts that are previously more difficult if not impossible, however, not very good in the way that the spirit of research and inquiry seem to have been dumbed down - and this in the so-called “Information Age”!