Medicinal Plant "Nam Pong Door"

[LepusChurn]

I am trying to identify this plant, which had medicinal properties and the leaves & fruit can also be eaten. I have seen a Thai video on YouTube that shows this but of course, it was in Thai. This plant is growing wild across the road on two sites and was identified by my wife a "Nam Pong Door" but all my attempts to find an English Common Name or a Latin binomial name have failed - hence this new topic.

I have added some photos - the key identifier is the large spikes/thorns at the nodes. I have yet to see a flower (which are apparently small) or a fruit which are spherical & white.

 

The first photo (01) has the name written in Thai (badly) by me and the others are of the leaves & spikes.

 

Thanks for any assistance.

[farmerjo]

I thought but may be wrong without researching it that a lot of plants that have leaves equal opposite can be poisonous.

[Speedo1968]

 

My friend who is an alternative therapy person ( acupuncture, herbal treatments etc. ) says that the plant is as shown in the wiki link below.

Not widely used but in the south is more common than the north.    It grows where I live about 50km south of Khon Kaen.

It is used for swelling of the neck and similar conditions.   My friend does not use it in her treatments.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azima

 

 

[kokesaat]

Azima sarmentosa

[LepusChurn]

Many thanks - Azima sarmentosa it is. Interestingly I could not find a great deal of information about it and finally confirmed the ID'd from various images on Google. It is NOT mentioned in Medicinal Plants in Thailand Vol 2 (Chuakul et al 1997) but Thai Plant Names (Smitinand 1980) lists it with three Thai Common Names from 3 different regions (see attached file) including my name of "Nam Pong Door" properly spelt as "Naam Plungdo".

There is an entry for it in the BFK Plant encyclopedia, which Google translates from the Thai and you then have to re-translate a bit. See here:

http://www.dnp.go.th/botany/mindexdictdetail.aspx?runno=11961

 

This mentions 4 species of which only one is found in Thailand. The Useful Tropical Plants database mentions the African species Azima tetracantha (which looks very similar) and list s a wide range of medicinal properties; see here:

http://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Azima+tetracantha.

 

I am interested to know if there is a similar source of information for the Thai species. As I said in my original posting I have seen a Thai YT video where Azima was grown "commercially" to both its fruit and young laves, both of which are eaten, but my wife could find nothing on the medicinal properties. I am interested purely from a "Citizen Scientist" point of view - what my 9 year old grandson refers to as my "botanical distractions".

Thanks again.

 

 

Azima sarmentosa in Thai Plant Names.pdf