Igyo
Dysoxylum gaudichaudianum · Ivory mahogany
- Names in the book
- Igiw, Agiw, Taliatan, Tag.; Ananag̃tag̃, Bakugan, Makasili, Vis.; Malabag̃aw, Pam.; Basiloag, Iloc.
- Colours
- flowercreamfruitorange, brown
- Native range
- Malesia to Australia and the western Pacific
- In the Philippines, per the book
- Batangas and Laguna.
- Family
- Meliaceae, filed in the book under Meliaceæ
- Printed as
- Dysoxylum Blancoi, Vidal. (D. salutare, F. Villar; Turroca virens, Blanco.)
- Sources
- Page 76 on Project Gutenberg · Wikipedia
Dysoxylum blancoi, the name printed in the book, is treated here as a synonym of Dysoxylum gaudichaudianum.
The plant today
Didymocheton gaudichaudianus, commonly known as ivory mahogany, is a species of rainforest tree in the family Meliaceae, native to Malesia, Papuasia, Queensland, Australia, and some southwest Pacific islands.
Excerpt from “Didymocheton gaudichaudianus” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Recorded in the Philippines
GBIF holds 153 records of this plant from the Philippines. The ones with map coordinates fall in 8 provinces: Palawan (7), Sorsogon (6), Davao del Sur (4), Laguna (4), Metropolitan Manila (3), Bukidnon (2), Quezon (1), Aurora (1).
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
The bark of the trunk, dry and finely powdered, is used in doses of 1½–2½ grams as an emetic, and, according to Padre Blanco, its effect is very certain.
It is also a febrifuge, and Padre Mercado states that it cures “all forms of asthma, suffocative affections of the chest, and griping pains of the belly.” He also states that it yields marvelous results in malarial fevers, given during the cold stage in doses of 4–8 grams in water or wine in which it has macerated 12 hours. He also recommends its use before breakfast as an anthelmintic in lumbricoids, and finally attributes to it virtues as an emmenagogue.
Padre Blanco calls attention to the species D. schizochitoides, Turcz. (Turroea octandra, Blanco), Himamaw, Tag., as a substitute for D. Blancoi.
The Tagalo “herb-doctors” pretend that the part of the bark near the earth is doubly efficacious, for which reason they administer only that portion which is within one meter of the ground, giving it in the doses already mentioned.
Botanical description
Tree 16–20 meters high. Leaves glabrous, odd-pinnate, petioles very long; leaflets entire, opposite, short-petiolate, acute, oblique at the base. Flowers in axillary panicles. Calyx, 5 imbricated sepals. Corolla, 5 linear, lanceolate petals united at the base. Staminal tube, 10-toothed and 10-anthered. Ovary 5-celled, each cell containing two ovules. Style somewhat longer than the stamens. Stigma thick and depressed. Seed vessel globose, depressed, somewhat downy, 5-angled; with 5 compartments each containing 2 seeds.
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.
All 1 results on Europe PMC