Aristolochia saccata
English: Pouch Birthwort.
Synonym: Siphisia angustifolia, Siphisia saccata.
Mizo: Sanghar-vaibel.
Region: China, Bhutan, NE India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sikkim.
Habitat: dense forests in valleys.
Use: medicinal.
Botany
Herb; climbing.
Stems: striped, brown-woolly.
Leaves: stalks are 8-10 cm, woolly to becoming hairless; leaf blade ovate, rounded-heart-shaped, or ovate-lanceshaped, 20-35 x 15-30 cm, leathery, below densely white woolly, above glabrate, veins palmate, 5-6 pairs from base, base heart-shaped, sinus 1-4 cm deep, tip pointed.
Inflorescence: 3 to 5-flowered, 3 to 4 cm, racemes on old woody stems.
Flowers: stalks 2 to 4 cm, drooping, brown hairy; bractlets subulate, about 10 × 2-3 mm; flowering May to June.
Calyx: yellow-green with purple veins and blotches, limb dark purple; tube geniculately curved, below hairy; basal portion of tube pouch-like, about 30 × 10 mm, orifice nearly quadrate; limb obliquely trumpet-shaped, about 3 cm in diameter, 3-lobed; lobes unequal, upper 2 distinctly recurved, deltoid, lower one broadly deltoid.
Anthers: oblong, 3 to 4 mm.
Gynostemium 3-lobed.
Fruit: capsules, ovoid; 5 cm long, 3 to 4 cm wide; splitting basipetally.