Cuphea ignea A.DC.

Cuphea ignea or bunga cerutu is native to Mexico and the West Indies region, and has become a popular garden plant in Britain, earning the Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit. Its seeds produce oil with potential uses in cooking and industry, its flowers are a nectar source for hummingbirds and butterflies, while traditionally this plant is also used to treat boils and peptic ulcers.

Bunga cerutu can be found growing in pine-Quercus-Liquidambar forests, at elevations of about 1,500-1,600 m asl. This plant is not frost-tolerant. Best planted in fertile, moist, light, well-watered, and well-drained soil with a pH of about 5.6-8.5. This plant prefers a position in full sun, but is tolerant of partial shade. Established plants can withstand or tolerate some drought.

• Stem thin and somewhat brittle, young stems reddish.
• Leaves simple, small, green, spear- to oval-shaped, arranged closely in opposite pairs or whorled around the stem. Margin entire.
• Flowers small (2.5 cm long), solitary or borne singly from the leaf axils, lacking petals, flower tubular resembling a glowing cigar, the colorful tube part is actually a red-orange calyx (fused sepals), longitudinally grooved, with white and purple-blue tips, and a basal hypanthium (round pouch-like bulge at the base).
• Fruit a thin explosive capsule containing seeds.
• Seeds small, dark brown.

• Plant propagation through seed (generative) and stem or shoot cuttings.
• Germination usually takes several weeks due to the hard seed coat.

Capric acid, flavonoids (quercetin and kaempferol glycosides), 7-hydroxy-3-methoxycoumarin 5-O-β-glucopyranoside, phenolic compounds, tannins, alkaloids, glycosides, triterpenes, and unsaturated sterols.

Treats boils, peptic ulcers.

Bunga rokok.