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Elegant Tape Vine
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Elegant Tape Vine
ative Photo: Krishan Lal
Common name: Elegant Tape Vine • Nepali: तारो लहरा Taro Laharaa
Botanical name: Stephania elegans    Family: Menispermaceae (Moonseed family)

Elegant Tape Vine is a herbaceous vines with slender, grooved branches. Leaf-stalks are 2-4 cm long, prominently attached to the leaf away from the edge (peltate). Leaves are narrowly triangular or ovate-triangular 5-10 x 2.5-5.5 cm, papery, usually brown when dry, glossy above, both surfaces hairless, base flat to slightly concave, sometimes heart-shaped, tip slightly long-pointed, sometimes blunt, minutely mucronate, upward and downward each palmately 4- or 5-veined. Inflorescences is simple (or compound) umbelliform cymes. Stalks carrying the clusters are slender and straight. Stalked flowers are light green or purple. Male flowers: sepals 6, dark purple, obovate, about 1.6 x 1 mm, hairless. Female flowers: perianth as in male flowers. Fruits are red, broadly obovate-globose, about 7 mm. Elegant Tape Vine is found in the Himalayas, from Garhwal to Assam, at altitudes of 1000-1700 m.

Identification credit: Krishan Lal Photographed in Sirmaur Distt., Himachal Pradesh.

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