Scientific Name
Other Names
Life Form
Synonyms
Family
Food - Tender leaves are eaten cooked as vegetable, quite bitter in taste. Fleshy young shoots are eaten raw. Medicine - Leaf and root infusion has been recorded to be used in diarrhoea .
Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal
Relatively common in tropical evergreen and lower montane forests (altitude up to 1500 m asl.
Despite its tough, spiny stems, it is an important food source and habitat for wildlife.
Large prickly climber.
Stem round or slightly ridged, woody; branches smooth or sparsely prickly.
Leaves are ovate to round abruptly contracted to cuspidate tip, base flat or rounded, 6-12 x 13-25 cm, costae 5 + 2, weak, marginal; leathery; leaf-stalk 1-1.5 cm, upper part often with margins waved above, winged for lower 1⁄3, wing oblong, narrow, about 0.5 mm; tendrils strong; abscission from just above tip of wings.
Flowers are borne in 2-3 bracted, stalked umbels, up to 0.7 cm long. Female umbels are about 14-flowered; flower-cluster-stalks stout (especially in fruits); flower-stalks about 1.2 cm long; receptacle spherical, large (up to 5 mm diameter) with prominent bracteoles up to 1.3 mm. Male umbels are 20-40 flowered; flower-stalks 3.5-4 mm; receptacles spherical 3-4 mm diam., with brown bracteoles, flower buds oblong, tepals reflexed a maturity, outer hooded, 5.7-6 x 1.5-1.9 mm, inner 0.6-0.8 mm wide, filament 5.3-5.4, anthers linear 1.2-1.5 x 0.3-0.6 mm.
Berry is red, about 0.7 cm in diameter.
Flowering: September-October