Stephania glabra English: Hairless tape vine.
Assamese: Peer-gruj.
Hindi: Purha.
Manipuri: Ayang Lei.
Mizo: Hnahbialhrui.
Clades:
Menispermaceae.
Region: East Asia, China, India, , Uttarkhand, Assam, Meghalaya, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand.
Habitat: shrublands; altitudes 1000 to 2500 m.
Use: large root as a container for lime; medicinal.
Content: cycleanine, inhibitor of nitric oxide production reducer of tumour necrosis factor; stepholidine, sedative and antispastic; tetrahydropalmatine, antispasmodic, gastro-intestinal, sedative, cardiotonic activity.
BotanyHerb; climbing; perennial.
Root: very bitter; tubers with fibrous roots, round or oval or irregular shapes, grayish white, weighing 5 to 20 kg.
Stem: twining.
Leaves: ovate or round, blunt at tip; 4-15 x 4-12 cm, hairless; 5-nerved; stalks 5 to 14 cm long, thickened at base.
Flowers:sepals 6; outer ones narrow-oblong; inner ones obovate; petals 3, ± 2 mm long; flowering May to April.
Male flowers: in leaf-axils; umbel-like cymes; flower-cluster-stalks 4 to 8 cm long, hairless; bracts and bracteoles linear or linear-lanceshaped, hairless;
Female flowers: ovary oblong-ovoid; style short; stigma 4-5-cleft.
Fruit: up to 15 cm long; drupes; stalked; ovoid; about 5 x 6 mm; endocarp transversely ribbed and grooved; embryo about 4 mm long.
Cotyledons oblong, blunt at tip.