Phyllanthus Acidus - Cultivation and Human Use

Cultivation and Human Use

The Otaheite gooseberry prefers moist soil. It can be cultivated in a variety of ways—budding, cutting and air-layering—in addition to the usual seed growth. The tree is cultivated for its ornamental value, but also for food and medicinal purposes. While it produces some fruit throughout the year, it is mainly harvested in January except in South India, where it bears crops in April-May and again in August-September. As the fruit does not soften when ripe, it is harvested when the fruit begins to drop.

Various parts of the plant are used for food. In India and Indonesia, the cooked leaves are eaten. While the fruit is eaten fresh, and is sometimes used as flavoring for other dishes in Indonesia, it is generally regarded as too tart to eat by itself in its natural form and is processed further. It is candied in sugar or pickled in salt, used in chutney, relish or preserves.In the Philippines, it is used to make vinegar as well as eaten raw soaked in salt or vinegar-salt solution and sold along the roadside. They make these into a syrup in Malaysia. Liberally sugared, it is also used to make fruit juice. In Thailand it is used as an ingredient to make Som tam.

The plant is also used medicinally. The peppered leaves are used to make a poultice to treat sciatica, lumbago and rheumatism, while the seeds are used as a cathartic and the root as a purgative. The syrup is used to medicate the stomach, and in India the fruit is eaten as a blood-enhancer for the liver. P. acidus contains 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, caffeic acid, adenosine, kaempferol and hypogallic acid.

While the wood is strong and durable if properly treated, the tree is rarely harvested for wood. In India, the root bark is sometimes used for tanning.