Kampanilya
Allamanda cathartica · Golden trumpet
- Names in the book
- The book records no Philippine name for this plant.
- Names from other sources
- Kampanilya, Kampanero, Tagalog; Campanilla, Spanish and Tagalog. Campanilla is Spanish for "little bell". The same name is used for yellow oleander. Listed by StuartXchange and PROSEA.
- Names in the 1985 book
- English: Yellow bell; Tagalog: Kampanilya
- Colours
- floweryellow
- Native range
- Brazil
- In the Philippines, per the book
- In Calauang and other parts of Luzon and Panay.
- Family
- Apocynaceae, filed in the book under Apocynaceæ
- Printed in 1901 as
- Allamanda cathartica, L.
- Printed in 1985 as
- Allamanda cathartica L.
- Sources
- Page 159 on Project Gutenberg · Healing Wonders of Herbs (1985), page 94 · Wikipedia
The plant today
Allamanda cathartica, commonly called golden trumpet, common trumpetvine, and yellow allamanda, is a species of flowering plant in the family Apocynaceae. It is native to Bolivia, Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela, and widely naturalised elsewhere in the tropics. This plant is cited in Flora Brasiliensis by Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius. It does not twine, nor does it have tendrils or aerial roots. It can be pruned into a shrub form. If not pruned it can sprawl to a height of 6 m (20 ft). According to McMullen, it can be up to 15 m (49 ft) in length in the Galapagos Islands where it is naturalised.
Excerpt from “Allamanda cathartica” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Recorded in the Philippines
GBIF holds 193 records of this plant from the Philippines. The ones with map coordinates fall in 30 provinces, most often Davao del Sur (31), Davao Oriental (21), Batangas (15), Metropolitan Manila (11), Negros Occidental (9), Benguet (8), Laguna (8), Rizal (6), and 22 more.
Counts from GBIF occurrence records, October 2026. They include planted trees and garden plants, and a province with no records may only lack collectors.
What the 1901 book says
A historical record, quoted as printed. Doses and remedies here are not medical advice.
Uses
As this plant has no common name in the Philippines it is most probable that the natives do not use it. The Portuguese introduced it into India from Brazil. A decoction of the leaves is purgative and is used in lead colic. The milky juice of the plant is emetic and cathartic in large doses, but simply laxative when given in doses of 8 or 10 drops. On account of its possible violent cathartic action great prudence should be exercised in prescribing it.
Botanical description
A twining shrub with leaves in fours, bright green, oblong, covered with rough hairs. Flowers in compound spikes, yellow. Calyx 5-toothed. Corolla 5-lobed, funnel-form. Stamens 5, inserted in throat of corolla, which above them is closed by a crown of hairs. Ovary 1-celled with 2 many-ovuled placentæ. Style cylindrical, terminating in a bilobulate cone. Capsule globular, about the size of a pea, black, coriaceous, thorny, bivalvate. Seeds numerous, each encircled by a broad membranous wing.
What the 1985 book uses it for
A record of home remedies from 1985, with the book's amounts and doses reworded. It is not medical advice.
- ConstipationLeaf decoction, drunk.Boil 5 leaves in 2 glasses of water for 10 minutes. Adults take 1 glass twice a day. Children twice a day: ages 2 to 6 one tablespoon, ages 7 to 12 one cup.Page 19
Summarised from Herminia de Guzman-Ladion, Healing Wonders of Herbs (Manila: Philippine Publishing House, 1985), where this plant is shown as “Kampanilya” on page 94. The book is in copyright, so its wording and photographs are not reproduced. Amounts are the book's, restated.
Recent research
The most cited papers since 2022 that name this plant in the title, pulled from Europe PMC in October 2026. Titles are the authors' own and the findings have not been reviewed here.
- Se nanoparticles stabilized with Allamanda cathartica L. flower extract inhibited phytopathogens and promoted mustard growth under salt stress
- Phytochemical and Biological Study of Trophic Interaction between Pseudosphinx Tetrio L. Larvae and Allamanda Cathartica L
- Ontogenesis of the anastomosed laticifers of Allamanda cathartica (Apocynaceae) and the chemical nature of the stem latex