Cissampelos pareira (velvetleaf) is a species of flowering plant in the family Menispermaceae.
It is a slender tomentose climber. The leaves are peltate, 2.5âÂÂ12 cm long, 2.5âÂÂ11.5 cm broad, triangularly broad-ovate, or orbicular, obtuse, mucronate, base cordate or truncate, ñ tomentose on both sides; petiole pubescent. Flowers are small in size, pedicels filiform. Male flowers clustered in the axil of a small leaf; sepals are 4 in number, obovate-oblong, hairy outside; petals 4 in number, united to form a 4-toothed cup, hairy outside; stamens 4, column short, anthers connate, encircling the top of the column. Female flowers clustered in the axils of orbicular, hoary imbricate bracts, on 5âÂÂ10 cm long racemes; sepal 1, petal 1; carpel 1, densely hairy; style shortly 3-fid. Drupe 4âÂÂ6 mm long, 3âÂÂ4 mm broad, subglobose, compressed, hairy-pubescent, red when fresh, black when dry, endocarp transversely ribbed, tuberculate. Seeds are horseshoe-shaped.
Cissampelos pareira is used in Chinese herbology, where it is called xàshÃÂng téng () or yàhà « nú (). The species is also known as abuta and called laghu patha in Ayurvedic medicine. In Tamil Nadu it is called ponmusutai and it is used for a number of medicinal purposes.
Some attention has been paid to it in Kenya, Tanzania, and other places for its purported antimalarial properties in particular, as well as in India for its antiviral properties, especially against Dengue virus.