Description

Gulbel is a native plant from India, also known to be found in Far East, primarily in rainforests. The plant is climbing shrub with heart-shaped leaves. It has stems about 6 cm in diameter, with light grey, papery bark. The leaves are 7.5-14 cm long, 9-17 cm broad, broadly ovate or orbicular, deeply heart shaped at the base. Tiny greenish yellow flowers occur in racemes 7-14 cm long. Flowers have 3+3 sepals in 2 layers, the outer ones are small, the inner large large. Six stamens prominently protrude out. The plant flowers during the summer and fruits during the winter. Gulbel prefers acid, neutral or basic alkaline soil. It can grow in semi-shade or no shade. Requiring moist soil. Gulbel grows easily without chemical fertilizers, and use of pesticides.

Characteristics:

A large woody succulent climbing shrub. Bark grayish brown, corky, young shoots glabrous, flaking with age, stem striate, scattered with lenticels, branches striate, generally sending down long aerial roots from the host trees, where they spread. Leaves simple, alternate, broadly ovate, cordate or suborbicular, 4-17 x 4.5-14 cm across, base cordate to sinuate, margin entire, apex deeply acuminate or cuspidate, chartaceous, membranous, thin, green, glabrous above, paler glabrous with glandular papillose patches beneath, strong basal veins 5-7, impressed above and prominent beneath, lateral veins 2-3 pairs, veinlets fine and close, petiole twisted, swollen near the base, pulvinate, glabrous, about 2-7 cm long. Inflorescence axillary or on old leafless stems, slender, pseudo-racemose cymes, about 4-15 cm long. Flowers unisexual, fascicled, yellow, pedicellate. Male flowers, pedicels slender, glabrous about 3-4 mm long, sepals 6, in 2 series, inner series larger, elliptic, concave, about 3-4 mm long, outer series smaller, about 1-1.5 mm long, free, imbricate, subelliptic, apex acute, petals 6, free, rhomboidal, obovate, lateral edges inrolled, fleshy, stamens 6, free, filaments clavate, about 3 mm long, anthers loculed, subextrorse, obliquely or longitudinally dehisced. Female flowers, sepals and petals similar as in male flowers, staminodes 6, carpels 3, curved-ellipsoid, about 2 mm long, glabrous, style short, stigma capitate. Fruits drupes, ovoid or globose, glabrous, shining, bright red when ripe, about 5-7 mm across, stalks about 4-7 mm long, pericarp thin, style scar subterminal, endocarp bony, very thin, subrotund or broadly elliptic about 6-7 mm long, rounded, flattened ventral, slightly papillose on surface, style scars subbasal. Seeds curved or half moon shape, endospermic, cotyledons flattened, leaflike, radicle short.

Medicinal use:

The herb has a long history in use by practitioners of Ayurveda. Known by its practitioners to treat convalescence from severe illness, arthritis (or joint diseases), liver disease, eye diseases, urinary problems, anemia, cancer, diarrhea, and diabetes. Also, help remove toxins from the body. The plant is cultivated by stem cutting in the month of May-June and used in Tibetan medicine. The herb is known to have a sweet, bitter and acid taste. Extracted from the stem and root is a nutrient starch used to treat chronic diarrhea and dysentery. According to a legend, the herb is known locally as giloya or "heavenly elixir": Kept the angels eternally young.