Family LAMIACEAE

Lamiaceae or Labiateae is a family of flowering plants. It is also known as the mint

family. Traditionally, it had been considered closely related to Verbenaceae but in the 1990s, studies
showed that many genera classified in Verbenaceae belong instead in Lamiaceae. The original family
name is Labiatae because of the flowers typically have petals fused into an upper lip and a lower lip.
Although this is still considered an acceptable alternative name, most botanists now use the name
“Lamiaceae” in referring to this family.

The plants are frequently aromatic in all parts and include many widely used culinary
herbs. Some are shrubs, trees, or rarely vines. Many members of the family are widely cultivated not only
because of their aromatic qualities but also because they are easy to cultivate. These plants are among the
easiest plants to propagate by stem cuttings. Some plants in this family are grown for decorative foliage.
Others are grown for food purposes, but seeds are utilized instead of leaves.

Plants in this family usually have leaves emerge oppositely, each pair at right angles to
the previous one or whorled. The stems are frequently square in cross section, but this is not found in all
members of the family, and is sometimes found in other plant families. The flowers are bilaterally
symmetrical with 5 united petals, 5 united sepals. They are usually bisexual and verticillastrate or a
flower cluster that looks like a whorl of flowers but actually consists of two crowded clusters.
 Vitex Negundo Linn. (Lagundi)
Family: Lamiaceae

Lagundi is found, often common, throughout the Philippines at low and medium
altitudes, in waste places, thickets, etc. It also occurs in tropical East Africa, Madagascar, India
to Japan, and southward through Malaya to western Polynesia.

This plant is an erect, branched shrub 2 to 5 meters in height. The leaves have usually
five leaflets (rarely three) which are palmately arranged. The leaflets are lanceolate, 4 to 10
centimeters long, hair beneath, and pointed at both ends, the middle leaflets being larger than the
others and distinctly stalked. The flowers are numerous, blue, 6 to 7 millimeters long, and borne
in terminal inflorescences (panicles) 10 to 20 centimeters long. The calyx is hairy, and 5-toothed.
The corolla is densely hairy in the throat, and the middle lobe of the lower lip is the longest. The
fruit is a succulent drupe, black when ripe, rounded, and about 4 millimeters in diameter.

The leaves contain a colorless essential oil of the odor of the drug, and a resin; the fruit
contains an acid resin, an astringent organic acid, mallic acid, and coloring matter. There are also
traces of alkaloid. The leaves in decoction were useful externally in cleansing ulcers, and
internally for flatulence, and as a lactagogue and emmenagogue. A decoction of the bark, tops,
and leaves is said to be antigastralgic.
The leaves are used in aromatic baths;
also as an insectifuge. The seeds are
boiled in water and eaten, or the water is
drunk, to prevent the spreading of toxin
from the bites of poisonous animals. An
infusion is also used for disinfecting
wounds. Wine in which the seeds have
been soaked is said to be good for dropsy.
The leaves applied to the forehead are said to be helpful for
Flower of Vitex negundo Linn.
headache. The plant is also regarded as a febrifuge. The
root is thought to be tonic, febrifuge, and expectorant, and the fruit to be nervine, cephalic, and
emmenagogue. The tincture of the root-bark is recommended in cases of irritable bladder and for
rheumatism. The powdered root is prescribed for piles of a demulcent, and also for dysentery.
The root is used in a great variety of diseases: dyspepsia, colic, rheumatism, worms, boils, and
leprosy.

The flowers are used in diarrhea, cholera, fever, and

diseases of the liver, and are also recommended as a cardiac
tonic. The flowers and stalks, reduced to powder, are
administered in cases of discharge of blood from the
stomach and bowels.

The fruit is given for headache, catarrh, and watery

eyes, and, when dried, is considered vermifuge.

The seeds make a cooling medicine for skin diseases

and leprosy, and for inflammation of the mouth.

Oil prepared with the juice is applied to the sinuses and to scrofulous sores. The oil may
also be used as a bath for rubbing on the head in glandular (tubercular) swellings of the neck.
The oil is found to effect marvelous cures of sloughing wounds and ulcers.
 Clinopodium douglasii/Mentha arvensis Linn. (Hierba Buena)

Family: Lamiaceae

Hierba buena is widely scattered in cultivation in the Philippines, having been introduced
by the Spaniards. It is a native of Europe, and is now cultivated or naturalized in most countries.

This medicinal plant is a prostrate, smooth, or slightly hairy, strongly aromatic, usually
purplish, much-branched herb, with the stems growing up to 40 centimeters long, and the
ultimate branches ascending. The leaves are elliptic to oblong-ovate, 1.5 to 4 centimeters long,
short-stalked, toothed in the margins, headlike whorls. The calyx teeth are triangular or
lanceolate, and hairy, the corolla also being hairy.

It is used with other vegetables and in salads to give flavor. Peppermint oil is largely used
in pharmaceutical preparations to disguise the taste of evil-smelling and unpleasant drugs. It is
used as a flavoring in confections and dentrifices.

The plant yields volatile oil, 0.22 %, which contains pulegone, menthol, menthene,
menthenone, and limonene. Some varieties yield more volatile oil.
 The tops and leaves are carminative and,
when bruised, are used as an antidote for the
stings of poisonous insects.

The mint is valuable in neuralgic

affections and is specific in renal and vesical
diarrhea. It is also valuable as an antiseptic. Its
alcoholic or ethereal extract is used as a local
anesthetic in affections of the nose, pharynx, and
Flower of Clinopodium
larynx. It is also important in obstinate vomiting of
douglasii/Mentha arvensis Linn.
pregnancy. The leaves and stems are infused, and used as
a carminative, an antispasmodic, and a sudorific. Menthol produces local anaesthesia in cases of
headache and facial neuralgia. Its decoction is largely used with lemon-grass as a febrifuge. It is
also given in hiccups. It is used in jaundice. The powdered, dried plant is used as a dentrifice.