Cyclea barbata Miers

Slender climber, up to c. 5 m. Roots tuberous. Stems herbaceous or woody, hispid when young, lat-er glabrescent. Leaves with hispid petioles 3-6.5 cm, inserted 6-25 mm above the basal margin; lamina ovate, deltoid-ovate or broadly ovate, apex acutely acuminate to obtuse with a finely mucronate acu-men, base slightly emarginate, truncate or rounded, 6-17.5 by 4-12.5 cm, margin often hispid; palmately 9-12-nerved; hispid to subglabrous above, puber-ulous to tomentose below, occasionally hispid along nerves; papyraceous. Male inflorescences axillary or cauliflorous, 7-12(-30) by 0.5-4(-12) cm, pu-berulous; flowers in dense, subcapitate, hairy clusters interruptedly borne on short lateral branches 1—4(—7) cm. Male flowers with pedicels 1-2 mm, calyx greenish, turbinate, puberulous, 1.5-2 mm long, lobes 4 (or 5), triangular, about half the length of tube; corolla gamopetalous, turbinate, margin truncate or obtusely lobed, 0.75 mm long, glabrous; synandrium 1.5-2 mm long, usually exserted. Female inflorescences similar to male but usually broa-der, 11-19 by 3-7 cm. Female flowers sessile in dense heads; sepals 2, rhomboid to obovate, 0.5 mm long and broad, pilose on outer surface; petals 2, ± reniform, opposite to and much broader than sepals, 0.5 by 0.75-1 mm, glabrous; ovary curved-ellipsoidal, 1 mm long, densely pilose, stigma 3-la-ciniate. Drupes obliquely obovate to rotund in out-line, 5-7 mm long, 4-5.5 mm broad, puberulous; endocarp bearing 3 rows of papilliform tubercles on both faces.

Found in forest, including teak forest and bamboo forest, and in grassland with scrub vegetation, sometimes on limestone, at elevations up to 1,100 metres.

Uses. The leaves are commonly used in Java to prepare a refreshment in the form of a jelly called 'tjintjau'. This is usually eaten together with a sweet syrup. The leaves are crushed in water and the mix-ture left to set. The jelly is also regarded as a stom-ach-medicine. According to HEYNE, the roots attain considerable size and when dried are used medicinal-ly: a brew prepared from them is used as a prophylac-tic against fever. The very bitter taste is due to the al-kaloid 'cycleine'. The starch content of the roots is high, and there is about 10% fat content.

Plants can be grown from seeds.