Cryptostegia madagascariensis - Purple Rubber Vine

Purple Rubber Vine is a twining woody vine or climbing shrub, 6-8 m in length, with abundant milky latex. Flower 3-6 cm long, violet, the tube darker inside, the lobes below whitish in the overlapping portion; corona with 5 simple lobes, approximately 1 cm long. Sepal-cup is green, bell-shaped, the sepals lanceshaped, velvet-hairy, 0.5-1.5 cm long. Stems are cylindrical, hairless, reddish brown, with few lenticels. Flowers are arranged in stalked cymes; bracts leaf-like, lanceshaped, approximately 5 mm long. Leaves are opposite; blades 4-10 x 2-4.7 cm, elliptical, oblong, or ovate, leathery, hairless, the tip short-tapering, blunt, or rounded. The margins are entire; venation pinnate, with14-16 pairs of secondary veins; upper surface dull; lower surface pale, with obscure venation; leaf-stalks hairless, 0.6-1.5 cm long; stipules minute, intrapetiolar. Paired seedpods are divergent, brown when mature, 5.8-13 cm long, woody. Purple Rubber Vine is native to Madagascar. It is a fast-growing invasive vine, cultivated and naturalized in India.