Kadsura heteroclita - South-Asian Kadsura

South-Asian Kadsura is a woody climber, hairless throughout. Flowers are creamish yellow, with tepals 10-17, largest 4.5-20 x 3.5-12 mm. Male flowers have stamens 40-74; staminodes absent. Female flowers have carpels 28-72. Flowers are borne on flower-cluster-stalk 0.1-3.5 cm (male), 0.4-3.3 cm (female) long. Leaf-stalks are 0.7-2.9 cm; leaf blade ovate-elliptic to elliptic, 6.5-13.5 x 2.5-6.5 cm, papery to somewhat leathery, secondary veins 5-9 on each side of midvein, base wedge-shaped to broadly wedge-shaped and often shortly decurrent on leaf-stalk, margin entire or finely toothed, tip pointed to tapering. Fruit-stalk is 1.4-4.6 cm; apocarps red, 0.7-2.2 0.6-1.5 cm. South-Asian Kadsura is native to the forests of SE Asia, at altitudes of 800-2000 m. In India it is seen in the Western Ghats and NE India. This species is used medicinally. Flowering: June-October.
Medicinal uses: Warning: Unverified information

The stems are used in southern China for the treatment of menstrual irregularities, blood deficiencies, and other female disorders. Derivatives of the root and stem are used as an analgesic and to ameliorate rheumatism, gastroenteritis, and malaria. The stems have been used in Chinese folk medicine to promote blood circulation and for the treatment of gastric and duodenal ulcer, acute and chronic gastroenteritis, postpartum abdominal pain and trauma.