Botanical name: Clematis zeylanica    Family: Ranunculaceae (Buttercup family)
Synonyms: Atragene zeylanica L., Naravelia zeylanica

Ceylon Clematis is a climbing shrub with young stem, leaves and buds densely hairy, and roots tuberous. Leaves are 2-3-foliolate; leaflets 4-12 x 3-8 cm, elliptic-ovate, base rounded, margins distantly toothed, tip pointed or tapering, velvet-hairy beneath, hairless above, basally 5-ribbed; at branch-ends leaflet transformed into a 3-fid, hooked tendril, up to 9 cm long; leaf-stalks 5-10 cm long. Flowers are about 1.5 cm across, bisexual, at branch-ends and in leaf-axils, in divaricately branched, up to 15 cm long panicles. Sepals are 4-5, greenish yellow, 0.8-1 cm long, elliptic, velvet-hairy without. Petals are 6-12, greenish yellow, 0.7-0.9 x 1-1.5 mm, linear to spoon-shaped. Stamens are many, filaments ligulate; staminodes 10-14, petaloid. Carpels are many; ovule 1 per carpel; style 1.5-2 mm long; stigma club-shaped. Sed-pods are many; 0.8-1 cm long, linear, stalked, with spirally twisted, 3-4 cm long, feathery persistent style. Ceylon Clematis is found in SE Asia. Flowering: October-April.
Medicinal uses: Ceylon Clematis is used in Ayurveda. Vine is crushed and inhaled to cure headache; fresh stems chewed in toothache; plant paste consumed with Borassus flabellifer for chest pain. Young leaves paste applied on skin diseases and ulcers, and on forehead for cold and headache; roots of Eranthemum palatiferum pounded with leaves of Naravelia zeylanica and applied to treat bone fracture. Crushed roots inhaled to cure cold and fever.

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The flower labeled Ceylon Clematis is ...