Paper Flower Climber is a large Climbing shrubs;
young stem densely brown velvet-hairy. Leaves are 4-9 x 2-3 cm, ovate
to elliptic, base rounded, tip pointed or tapering-caudate, densely
velvet-hairy on both sides, more below, puncatate; leaf-stalk to 1 cm
long. Flowers are borne in dense racemes in leaf-axils, crowded in
dense panicles at top of branches. Bracts are leafy, 0.6-1.2 x 0.3-0.4
cm. Sepal-tube is 4-5 mm long; sepals 5, up to 5 mm long elliptic cream
coloured, velvety, accrescent. Petals are absent. Stamens are 10, 5+5
in two rows. Ovary is inferior, 3-4 mm long, 1-celled; ovules 3,
drooping; stigma simple. The fluffy sham-winged fruit, which is about 8
mm long, has 5 edges and 5 persistent sepals which enlarge into the
fluffy aliform with 1.0-1.4 cm in length. Hairy and green sepals are
prominent. Paper Flower Climber is revered as a life-saver by the
forest dwellers who regularly depend on this vine during summer when
streams dry up. Sections of the vine store water, which people often
use to quench their thirst.
Medicinal uses: The leaves are bitter,
astringent, laxative, anthelmintic, depurative, diaphoretic and
febrifuge. They are useful in intestinal worms, colic, leprosy,
malarial fever, dysentery, ulcers and vomiting. The fruits are useful
in jaundice, ulcers, pruritus and skin diseases.
Identification credit: Dinesh Valke
Photographed in Maharashtra.
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The flower labeled Paper Flower Climber is ...