TETRADENIA RIPARIA HERBA - PlantZAfrica

Definition 

Tetradenia Riparia Herba consists of the 

fresh or dried leaf and smaller stems of 

Tetradenia riparia (Hochst.) Codd 

(Lamiaceae). 

Synonyms 

Iboza bainesii N. E. Br. 

Iboza galpinii N. E. Br. 

Iboza riparia (Hochst.) N. E. Br. 

Moschosma riparium Hochst. 

Vernacular names 

Iboza, ibozane (Z), watersalie (A), ginger 

bush 

Description 1 

Figure 1: Live plant (male flowers) 

Macroscopical 

Soft much-branched dioecious shrub or 

small tree 1-3m in height, with brittle, semisucculent 

stems and sticky-aromatic foliage; 

leaves petiolate, ovate-oblong to round, 35- 

80 × 35-70mm, sparsely to densely 

glandular-pubescent on both surfaces, 

margin coarsely crenate to dentate, variable 

in size, shape and degree of hairiness; 

flowers (May-Aug) in large branched 

terminal panicles, the male flower-spikes 

longer than the female, small (corolla 3- 

3.5mm long), white to pale mauve. 

1 Codd, L.E. (1985). The genus Tetradenia. Flora 

of Southern Africa 28(4): 113-116. 

TETRADENIA RIPARIA HERBA 

Figure 2: line drawing (female flowers) 

Microscopical 

Figure 3: microscopical features 

Characteristic features are: the cells of the 

lower leaf epidermis with sinuous walls and 

numerous anomocytic stomata (1); the 

polygonal cells of the upper leaf epidermis 

with occasional stomata and underlying

palisade layer (4); the numerous glandular 

hairs of leaf and stem, of two types: those 

with 2-3 celled stalk and unicellular head, up 

to 650µ in length, raised on papillae (5), 

particularly abundant on main leaf veins and 

those having a unicellular stalk and bicellular 

head up to 25µ in diameter, filled with 

yellow-brown contents (3); the uniseriate 

clothing hairs of both leaf surfaces, up to 

800µ long, thin-walled, smooth, 2-3 cells 

long, with swollen base (2); the microrosettes 

of calcium oxalate, 10-12µ in 

diameter, in cells of the leaf palisade and 

mesophyll (6). 

Crude drug 

Best collected when required, as material 

blackens rapidly after harvesting and dries 

with great difficulty; odour pleasant, highly 

aromatic, texture soft, foliage extremely 

sticky and strongly scented, stems soft and 

semi-succulent. 

Geographical distribution 

Wooded hillsides and stream banks of 

coastal KwaZulu/Natal, Mpumalanga and 

the Northern Province of South Africa; also 

northern Namibia, Angola, Botswana and 

east tropical Africa. 

Figure 4: distribution map 

Quality standards 

Identity tests 

Thin layer chromatography on silica gel 

using as solvent a mixture of toluene:diethyl 

ether:1.75M acetic acid (1:1:1). Reference 

compound cineole (0,1% in chloroform). 

Method according to Appendix 2a. 

Rf values of major compounds: 0, 36 (grey); 

cineole:0,79 (light blue) 

Figure 5: TLC plate 

HPLC on C18 column, method according to 

Appendix 2b. 

Figure 6: HPLC spectrum 

Major compounds: 

Methanol extract: 

Retention times (mins): 3.54; 3.73; 7.42; 

9.91 

Ethanol (70%) soluble extractive value: not 

less than 2.0% (range: 1.96-2.29%), 

determined using fresh material (15.0g) 

extracted with 200ml 70% ethanol, of which 

50ml aliquots were taken (method according 

to the BHP 1996). 

Purity tests 

Assay 

Not yet available

Major chemical constituents 

1. diterpenes e.g. ibozol 2 , 7 αhydroxyroyleanone, 

8 (14), 15sandaracopimaradiene-7α,18-diol 

3 

2. α-pyrones e.g. umuravumbolide 4, 5 , 

tetradenolide 6 , 

3. essential oil (1.9%) of which the 

main components are: α-terpineol 

(22.6%), fenchone (13.6%), βfenchyl 

alcohol (10.7%), βcaryophyllene 

(7.9%) and perillyl 

alcohol (6.0%) 7 . 

4. phytosterols 

Figure 7: chemical constituents 

Dosage forms 

An aqueous infusion or decoction is taken 

orally. 

Medicinal uses 

2 Zelnik, R., Rabenhorst, E., Matida, A., 

Gottlieb, H.E., Lavie, D and Panizza, S. (1978). 

Ibozol, a new diterpenoid from Iboza riparia. 

Phytochemistry 17: 1795-1797. 

3 Van Puyvelde, L., Lefebvre, R., Mugabo, P., de 

Kimpe, N. and Schamp, N. (1987). Active 

principles of Tetradenia riparia.II. 

Antispasmodic activity of 8 (14), 15sandaracopimaradiene-7α,18-diol. 

Planta 

Medica 52: 156-158. 

4 Van Puyvelde, L. et al.(1979). New α-pyrones 

from Iboza riparia. Phytochemistry 18: 1215- 

1218. 

5 Davies-Coleman, M. and Rivett, D.E.A. (1995). 

Structure of the 5,6-dihydro- α-pyrone 

umuravumbolide. Phytochemistry 38(3): 791- 

792. 

6 Van Puyvelde, L. and de Kimpe, N. (1998). 

Tetradenolide, an α-pyrone from Tetradenia 

riparia. Phytochemistry 49(4): 1157-1158. 

7 Campbell, W.E., Gammon, D.W., Smith. P., 

Abrahams, M. and Purves, T. (1997). 

Composition and antimalarial activity in vitro of 

the essential oil of Tetradenia riparia. Planta 

Medica 63: 270-272. 

Used throughout its range as a traditional 

remedy for cough, respiratory problems, 

stomach ache, diarrhoea, dropsy, angina 

pectoris, fever, malaria and dengue fever, 

yaws, headache, toothache and as an 

antiseptic. GR1 

Pharmacology/bioactivity 

Moderate antimalarial activity of the leaf 

essential oil against two strains of 

Plasmodium falciparum has been reported 7 . 

The diterpene diol 8 (14), 15sandaracopimaradiene-7α,18-diol 

has been 

shown to possess papaverine-like 

antispasmodic activity on methacholine, 

histamine and barium chloride-induced 

contractions of guinea pig ileum as well as 

on noradrenaline-induced contractions of 

rabbit aorta 3 . 

Leaf extracts (80% ethanol), tested for 

antimicrobial and antiviral activity, inhibited 

the growth of Staphylococcus aureus, 

Candida albicans, Mycobacterium 

smegmatis, Microsporum canis, 

Trichophyton mentagrophytes and Bacillus 

subtilis. 

No antiviral activity against Coxsackie virus, 

poliovirus (unspecified), measles virus and 

Semliki-Forest virus was demonstrated in 

these studies 8, 9 . Some of the observed 

antimicrobial activity has been attributed to 

10, . 

the presence of diterpenes 11 

8 Vlietinck, A. J. et al. (1995). Screening of a 

hundred Rwandese plants for antimicrobial and 

antiviral properties. Journal of 

Ethnopharmacology 46: 31-47. 

9 Boily, Y, and van Puyvelde, L. (1986). 

Screening of medicinal plants of Rwanda for 

antimicrobial activity. Journal of 

Ethnopharmacology 16: 1-13. 

10 Van Puyvelde, L. et al. (1986). Active 

principles of Tetradenia riparia.I. Antimicrobial 

activity of 8 (14), 15-sandaracopimaradiene- 

7α,18-diol. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 17: 

269-273. 

11 Van Puyvelde, L. et al.(1994). In vivo 

inhibition of mycobacteria by Rwandese 

medicinal plants. Phytotherapy Research 8: 65- 

69.

In an in vitro screen for antibacterial activity 

of hexane, ethanol and water extracts of 

South African plants, no inhibitory activity 

against Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus 

subtilis, Escherichia coli or Klebsiella 

pneumoniae was demonstrated 12 

An in vitro study of the effects of methanolic 

extracts of fruit, leaf, stem and root on 

skeletal (toad rectus abdominis), smooth 

(guinea pig ileum) and uterine (non-pregnant 

guinea pig) muscle 13 showed weak activity 

on uterine muscle and on smooth muscle 

relaxation, but strong to moderate activity on 

smooth muscle stimulation and on skeletal 

muscle. In the same study, hyper- and 

hypotensive effects of the extracts were 

tested in vivo in the rabbit, but no activity 

was observed in the dose used (5mg/kg IV). 

The general toxicity of the extracts was 

assessed in vivo in the mouse (dose 1.0g/kg 

IP); toxic effects were recorded for root and 

fruit extracts but not for leaf or stem extracts. 

Insecticidal activity of methanolic extracts 

(50mg/ml) of fresh and dried leaf, root and 

stem was assessed in vitro, using inhibition 

of oviposition in Rhipicephalus 

appendiculatus as a measure of acaricidal 

activity. None of the extracts was found to 

inhibit oviposition. 14 

Contraindications 

None known 

Adverse reactions 

There is a single published report 

concerning the toxicity of this species 15 and 

12 McGaw, L.J., Jager, A.K. and van Staden, 

J.V.( 2000). Antibacterial, anthelmintic and antiamoebic 

activity of South African medicinal 

plants. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 72(1/2): 

247-263. 

13 Chagnon, M. (1984). General pharmacological 

inventory of medicinal plants of Rwanda. 

Journal of Ethnopharmacology 12(3): 239-251. 

14 Van Puyvelde, L. et al. (1985). Screening of 

medicinal plants of Rwanda for acaricidal 

activity. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 13(2): 

209-215. 

15 Bodenstein, J. W. (1977). Toxicity of 

traditional herbal remedies. South African 

Medical Journal 52:790. 

dealing with several cases of poisoning, all 

of which occurred in adult males. The data 

were collected during 18 years of clinical 

practice amongst Zulu communities across a 

wide geographical and sociocultural range. 

The symptoms included a severe toxic 

inflammatory response of mucous 

membranes, conspicuous at all body 

orifices. In more severe cases this went on 

to necrosis and large scale sloughing. A 

second symptom was profuse salivation; in 

one case an amount in excess of 5 litres of 

saliva was produced in 24 hours. In all 

cases of terminal illness, urine and stools 

consisted of almost pure blood, were dark in 

colour and contained shreds of exfoliated 

mucous membrane. Patients who were 

fatally ill went into anuria during the last 24- 

48 hours, but one man recovered after 24 

hours of anuria. Most of the patients 

presenting with these symptoms had taken 

Tetradenia riparia as a cold or flu remedy, in 

every case exceeding the traditional dose 

and deviating from the accepted method of 

administration. 

Precautions 

No special precautions if used in the 

traditional manner 

Dosage 

To be determined 

Copyright in this monograph resides with the authors, the South 

African National Biodiversity Institute, the South African Medical 

Research Council and the University of the Western Cape. It may 

not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written consent of 

the copyright holders.

TETRADENIA RIPARIA HERBA - PlantZAfrica

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