FoI
Oriental Grape
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Oriental Grape
P Native Photo: Ashutosh Sharma
Common name: Oriental Grape
Botanical name: Vitis flexuosa    Family: Vitaceae (Grape family)
Synonyms: Vitis parvifolia, Vitis cinerea, Vitis truncata, Vitis wallichii

Oriental Grape is a woody climber with branches long and thin, branchlet sparsely covered with greyish white arachnoid tomentums before maturity. Tendrils are opposite to leaf, dichotomous branching. Leaves are ovate, broad ovate, triangular ovate or ovate elliptic, 2.5-12 cm long, tip suddenly sharpens or gradually sharpens, basal part shallow heart-shaped or nearly flat, each margin with 5-12 slightly irregular sawtooth, downside sparsely covered with arachnoid tomentums before maturity, netveined vein indistinct, basal veins 5; leaf-stalk 1.5-7cm long, sparsely covered with arachnoid tomentums or almost hairless. Flowers are borne in sparse panicles, basal branch developed, 4-12 cm long, flower-cluster-stalk 2-5 cm long, covered with arachnoid tomentums or almost hairless. Sepal-cup is shallow pea-shaped, margin with sinuate shallow lobes; petals exhibit cap like bonding that falls off later; hermaphrodite flower with a short stigma; flower disc with 5 lobes; ovary round ovate, stamen equal to ovary in length. Fruit is spherical, 0.8-1 cm in diameter, purplish black when mature. Oriental Grape is found in forests, shrublands, hillsides, valleys, meadows, fields, at altitudes of 100-2300 m, in the Himalayas, from Nepal to S China, Korea and Japan, Flowering: March-May.
Medicinal uses: Juice is used for fatigue, hydrodipsia, hiccups, injuries caused by falls. Fruits are used for xeropulmonary cough, hematemesis, dyspepsia, dysentery. Leaves are used for food accumulation, dysentery, eczema, scalding and burns. Root or root bark is used for icteric hepatitis, rheumatic arthralgia, injuries caused by falls, and anthracia.

Identification credit: Ashutosh Sharma Photographed in Khokhan WLS, Kullu district, Himachal Pradesh.

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