Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Cynanchum viminale

Cynanchum viminale
Photo: Mark Marathon, CC BY-SA 4.0

Cynanchum viminale is a leafless, green-stemmed succulent that grows as a shrub or climbing vine across a huge range from Africa to Asia. It tolerates very dry to fairly humid conditions, and its milky sap is caustic and should be handled with care.

Family
Apocynaceae (Dogbane family)
Grows as
Shrub, Climber, Succulent
Light
Full sun, Bright indirect
Water
Water sparingly and let the soil dry out fully between waterings.
Soil
Free-draining sandy or gritty mix.
Temperature
18-35 °C; protect below 10 °C
How easy
Moderate
Safety
Toxic: Milky sap is caustic and can burn skin; the plant is poisonous when eaten and can cause poisoning and death in livestock.
Native range
Trop. & S. Africa, W. Indian Ocean, Trop. Asia to SE. China and New Caledonia
Climate
seasonally dry tropical

About

Cynanchum viminale is a leafless succulent plant in the family Apocynaceae. The species is native to West Africa, the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific region. The species' natural range extends from South Africa throughout much of Africa and the Middle East to India, Indochina, Southern China, Indomalaya and into Meganesia. The species is also found on several Indian Oceans islands including Mauritius, Réunion and the Seychelles.

In keeping with its wide distribution, the species is known by a range of common names, including caustic-creeper, caustic bush, sacred soma, soma, rou shan hu, Rapunzel plant, liane calle and kitupa.

Other Cynanchum plants

Cynanchum acidum

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cynanchum viminale 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.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…