Stemona tuberosa: an uncommon vine of Odisha

Sanjeet Kumar
Regional Plant Resources Centre
Bhubaneswar, India

The use of the natural products for the daily life of human health care is not new. Basically, the various plant and plant parts are used as a medicine for curing different diseases. Among the total recorded plant species 297,000-510,000 in the world, 10-20% is reported to be used for health care system. India is one of the mega biodiversity countries with more than 17,500 plant species and 6000 are already been reported as medicinal species. In India, Odisha has great diversity of medicinal plants. Among which, over 1000 species have potential medicinal values. The state has rich cultural and ethical diversity with many tribal communities. They are relying on natural resources and traditional method of health care system for their day to day life. They used variety of aromatic and medicinal plant species for the treatment of different ailments. Out of which Embelia ribes, Tinospora cordifolia, Stemona tuberose, Dioscorea bulbifera, Andrographis paniculata, Saraca asoca etc. are the prominent. Among them, Stemona tuberosa belongs to family Roxburghiacea is also having medicinal properties but very uncommon to get in present forest divisions of the state.  Botanically, it is a Twiner. Leaves are opposite, rarely alternate, similar to those of Dioscorea, except for the secondary venation. Leaves are ovate, caudate or finely acuminate, membranous, glabrous, with 7-11 primary nerves from the base, of which 3-5 reaching the tip, arcuate, with very fine close straight cross nervules, base truncately to deeply cordate with rounded lobes. Flowers are 1-3, 2.5-5 cm long, erect, foetid, greenish-yellow, with many parallel purple nerves, campanulate. Tepals are lanceolate, acuminate to finely acuminate. Stemens are very large, erect with stout red filaments, deeply grooved in front with crenulated margins; connective green; anther linear, inner layer of cells produced into a subulate point; pollen waxy to floury. Capsule is ovoid-oblong, 5-8 seeded. It is distributed in Australia, Bangladesh, China, Combodia, India, Loas, Malayasia, Myanmar, Philipines, Thailand and Vietnam. In Odisha, it is distributed in Mahendragiri, Ganjam, and occasional in open forest of the state.  Stemona tuberosa has diverse ethnobotanical uses in various parts of the world. Tuberous roots are used as antitussive, anthelmintic and insecticide in Vietnam. In Malaysia it is being used in phthisis for coughs and chest complaints while skin diseases in Myanmar. In Thailand, tuberous roots are used to treat scabies and kill head lice. However, in India roots are used to cure tuberculosis in lungs, soothes in human respiratory tract, antiseptic and gynecological disorders. In Chinese and Japanese traditional medicines tubers are used to manage respiratory diseases, prevent human and cattle parasites, agriculture pests and domestic insects. It is also used against mental disorder, worm, cough and jaundice in Banglades. The family stemonaceae is the only source of the stemona alkaloids. Several researchers have reported various chemical constituents of Stemona tuberosa from the other parts of the world. However, there was little known literature on pharmacological and chemical constituents of the species in India, particularly in Odisha.