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Coscinium fenestratum
Also called Yellow Vine
Coscinium fenestratum, called yellow vine or false calumba, is a rare, critically endangered woody climber from wet tropical forests of South Asia and Southeast Asia, grown mainly for its medicinal yellow stems and sap. It is not a common garden or houseplant and needs warm, humid, shaded conditions with rich soil.
Coscinium fenestratum, or yellow vine as it is sometimes referred to in English, is a flowering woody climber, native to South Asia and Mainland Southeast Asia. It is rare and critically endangered in many of its habitats.
Coscinium fenestratum is a member of the family Menispermaceae and the genus Coscinium. The plant is known by many different names, such as: Tree turmeric, False calumba, Colombo weed, Venivel or Weni wel (වෙනිවැල්), Weniwelgeta (වෙනිවැල්ගැට), Baanvalgata (බාන්වැල්ගැට) (in Sinhala), Dāru Haridrā or Kāleyaka (दारुहरिद्रा, कालेयकः in Sanskrit), Mara Manjal (in Tamil and Malayalam), Haem herb (in Thai), Voer Romiet (in Khmer), etc.
The habitat for Coscinium fenestratum spans South Asia and parts of Southeast Asia, from India to Indonesia. It can only thrive in a tropical climate and prefers mixed and dense evergreen forest, with fertile soil and high moisture.
Coscinium fenestratum has a long history as a medicinal plant in the various traditional medicines of the region where it grows. This includes Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha medicine in India, Sinhala medicine in Sri Lanka, the Kru Khmer healing traditions in Cambodia, traditional Vietnamese medicine of Thuốc Nam, etc. The plant is used for a large variety of diseases and conditions, from fevers and diabetes to celiac disease and snake bites. It is unclear if all these medicinal uses of C. fenestratum are backed up by science, but laboratory tests have shown that the plant has potent bioactive properties.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Coscinium fenestratum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
