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Kudzu Vine
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Kudzu Vine
P Native Photo: Angela Pangkam
Common name: Kudzu Vine, Japanese Arrowroot, Kudzu Bean, Kudzu Hemp • Adi: Ridin • Hindi: sisali, mugani, mugawana, mungani • Kannada: kohasaru • Khasi: Suting, Suting-rit • Marathi: arkamath, arkmut, jangli mung • Sanskrit: काकमुद्ग kakamudga, मार्जारगन्धिका marjaragandhika, मुद्गपर्णि mudgaparni, • Tamil: cirupayaru, narip payaru, naripayar • Telugu: pillippersara • Mizo: Hruihmul
Botanical name: Pueraria montana var. lobata    Family: Fabaceae (Pea family)
Synonyms: Pueraria thunbergiana, Pueraria triloba, Pueraria hirsuta

Kudzu Vine is a large climbing shrub, with branches slender, clothed with fine deflexed brownish hairs. Flowers are borne in simple racemes 8-15 inches long, dense-flowered towards the extremity; axis stout, velvet-hairy. flower-stalks very short, elongating in fruit, each with a pair of lanceshaped adpressed velvet-hairy bracteoles. Calyx is 7-20 mm, hairy with yellow-brown hairs; sepals lanceshaped, tapering, slightly longer than tube. Flowers are purple or reddish, 1 inch long, sweet scented; standard nearly round, 8-18 mm, notched, distinctly spurred and with yellow thickened part at base. Leaf stalks are 4-6 inches long, brown-hairy, stipules 1 inch long, fixed by the middle, membranous, brown velvety. Leaflets are 5-7 by 4-6 inches, round-rhomboid to ovate, lateral oblique, sharply tapering, membranous, dark-green and nearly hairless above and grey and thinly covered with very short adpressed hairs beneath when mature. Lateral nerves are 5-7 on either half. Pods are long elliptic, 4-14 cm x 6-13 mm, flattened, densely covered with rusty hairs. Kudzu Vine is found in SE Asia to Australia. Flowering: August-September.
Medicinal uses: It is a religious plant in Arunachal Pradesh, used in traditional festival. Paste of bark applied to cuts and wounds to stop bleeding and for quick heeling.

Identification credit: Tabish Photographed in Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh

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