''Adenia hondala'', commonly known as hondala is a large, tuberous, woody climber which scrambles over other plants. It is found in the Indian subcontinent, including

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

, and in southeastern Asia. The tuber and the fruit are used as herbal remedies and the plant is used as a cure for snake bites. The

caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larva, larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterfly, butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawfly ...

s of several species of

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises ...

feed on this plant; these include the tawny coster, the

clipper A clipper was a type of mid-19th-century merchant sailing vessel, designed for speed. Clippers were generally narrow for their length, small by later 19th century standards, could carry limited bulk freight, and had a large total sail area. "Cl ...

, the common cruiser and the Tamil lacewing.

Description

''Adenia hondala'' is a climbing plant growing from a large irregular-shaped

tuber Tubers are a type of enlarged structure used as storage organs for nutrients in some plants. They are used for the plant's perennation (survival of the winter or dry months), to provide energy and nutrients for regrowth during the next growin ...

. The woody, scrambling stems are thickened at the nodes. The leaves are alternate, with a tendril growing from each node, and these tendrils bear the flowers. The leaves are large and are deeply, palmately divided into three to five lobes; they have circular glands between the lobes. The flowers are greenish-white or bluish-white, each with a bell-shaped tube and five curled-back petals. The fruit is a capsule splitting into three valves with stiff rind and filled with seeds surrounded by fleshy white arils. The fruit is globular, green at first, turning orange as it ripens, and is poisonous. The fruits are poisonous and their resemblance to the fruits of the