Melicope pteleifolia
organism / organism-melicope-pteleifolia
ピアクラティン / Melicope pteleifolia (Champ. ex Benth.) T.G.Hartley
Melicope pteleifolia is a member of the citrus family. A northern Thai ethnobotanical review (Inta et al., 2025) records its leaves and fruits as tasting bitter and says Karen, Lahu, and Thai Yuan people use it as an herb in chili pastes and spicy soups.
Photographs (captions in Japanese)
Leaves and white inflorescences of Melicope pteleifolia (Chinese names 三椏苦 / 蜜茱萸) photographed at the Hong Kong Botanical Garden. Not from a wild habitat in northern Thailand, but photographed in a botanical garden in Hong Kong.
Shown: Melicope pteleifolia (Champ. ex Benth.) T.G.HartleyPart / state: Leaves and inflorescence
Photo: 阿橋 HQ / CC BY-SA 2.0 / original image / ledger's original image
Scope and provenance of the photo
Identification: Identified as labelled in the source. A photograph of a plant of the same species (scientific name matches), but the shooting location is a botanical garden in Hong Kong, not a wild habitat in northern Thailand. This was the only one (1) photograph on Commons confirmed under this scientific name.
Image shown: No resizing, trimming, or color changes. The original image from Wikimedia Commons is used as it is. For display, a WebP capped at 1200 px wide is served; the ledger's original image can be checked from the link above.
On this page (6 sections)
Reading the bitterness
A northern Thai ethnobotanical review (Inta et al., 2025) records Melicope pteleifolia (Rutaceae) as a seasoning plant whose chopped leaves add aroma to chili pastes and spicy soups. The account centers on Karen use, but the same table also lists similar uses by Lahu and Thai Yuan people.
The same review’s table records the plant’s taste as "Bitter" and its aroma as "citrus". These are entries in a compiled table based on interviews or literature, not values measured in a sensory test. The review does not identify individual informants or sample conditions.
The same compiled table also has a row for entire fruits, in addition to leaves, with taste recorded as Bitter and aroma as citrus. It says Thai Yuan people use the fruit to flavor spicy meat soup, showing a different plant part and use from the leaf records for Karen, Lahu, and Thai Yuan people.
Sources for this overview
Checked for this overview: Confirmed the account of use as a seasoning by Karen, Lahu, and Thai Yuan people. / Confirmed that the taste and aroma descriptions are entries in a table, not sensory-test results. / Confirmed that bitterness is also recorded for the fruits.
Structured claims — open a section to read each claim's confidence, evidence and limits
Sensory (2)
Scope: Northern Thailand, Karen record.
Note: A taste entry in an ethnobotanical review table, not a sensory test. The taste field is shared across use entries for Karen, Lahu, and Thai Yuan people.
Show data
organism-melicope-pteleifolia —has_sensory_attribute→ (the claim sentence above)Scope: Layer: Literature (compiled table in an ethnobotanical review). A row concerning another plant part (the fruit), separate from the leaf record elsewhere in the same review.
Show data
organism-melicope-pteleifolia —has_sensory_attribute→ (the claim sentence above)How processing and cooking change it (1)
Scope: Northern Thailand (a Karen record, with similar uses recorded for Lahu and Thai Yuan people).
Note: An entry in Table 1 of an ethnobotanical review (Inta et al., 2025, Heliyon). Frequency of use was recorded as 6.6%.
Show data
organism-melicope-pteleifolia —is_used_as→ (the claim sentence above)