Plants glabrous throughout or occasionally sparsely villous on stems and leaves. Caudexes subcylindrical. Roots usually fusiform-thickened, 10-20 × 1-6 cm. Stems twining, yellow-green but with purplish shade, more than 100 cm, often branched. Leaves on main stems alternate, lanceolate, ovate, or elliptic, 8-14 × 3-7 mm; usually leaves 2-4-fascicled on top of branchlets, subopposite or verticillate, petiole 1-5 mm; blade abaxially gray-green, adaxially green, ovate, narrowly ovate, or elliptic, 3-12 × 1.3-5.5 cm, abaxially rarely hirsute, veins obvious, base attenuate or sometimes rounded, margin usually entire or sparsely sinuate, occasionally revolute and hispid, apex acute or obtuse. Flowers solitary or paired on top of branchlets; pedicels 1-9 cm. Calyx adnate to ovary by half; tube hemispherical; lobes ovate or deltoid, 1-3 × 0.5-1 cm, entire, acute; sinus between calyx lobes acute or gradually becoming broader after anthesis. Corolla broadly campanulate, 2-4 × 2-3.5 cm, shallowly lobed; lobes yellow-green or milk-white, with purple spots, deltoid, 0.5-1 cm, revolute. Disk dark green, fleshy. Filaments subulate, slightly dilated at base, 4-6 mm; anthers 3-5 mm; ovary inferior. Capsule hemispherical at base, rostrate toward apex, 1.6-3.5 cm in diam. Seeds numerous, brown, winged, seed body oblong or ellipsoid. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug. 2n = 16.
More
A climbing herb. It has milky sap. It keeps growing from year to year. The side branches are short. They are slender and purple. The leaves are crowded at the end of small side shoots. The leaves are oval or sword shaped and 3-10 cm long by 2-4 cm wide. The flowers are purple and creamy-white There are one or two on the leafy small branches. The fruit are flattened capsules 2 cm across.
The large white roots are pounded, washed in salt water and cut into strips. It is then seasoned with sesame oil and soy sauce. They are also cooked with pig feet to prepare a dish. It is also mixed with milk and honey to make a drink.
Home