Cocculus orbiculatus (L.) DC., Syst. Nat. 1: 523. 1817. Menispermum orbiculatum L., Sp. Pl. 341. 1753. C. mollis Wallich ex Hook. f. & Thomson, Fl. Ind. 193. 1855 & in Fl. Brit. India 1: 102. 1872.

Climbing shrubs; stems herbaceous or slightly woody, 1 - 1.5 cm thick, grooved, slender, pubescent, blackish. Leaves elliptic to ovate-elliptic or ovate, cordate, truncate or abruptly cuneate at base, acute, apiculate or rounded and sometimes emarginate at apex, 3 - 10 x 1 - 5.5 cm, bright green and glabrous above, pale green and villous beneath, subcoriaceous; basal nerves 3 - 5, palmate; lateral nerves 2 - 3 pairs; petioles slender, 5 - 10 mm long, puberulous. Inflorescences axillary, extra-axillary or terminal, narrowly thyrsoid racemes, up to 7 cm long, often shorter than leaves, yellowish puberulous; male inflorescences fewer-flowered, shorter; bracts filiform; pedicels ca 5 mm long. Male flowers white, glabrous; sepals in 3 whorls of 3 each; outermost minute, middle ones up to 1 mm long, inner ones obovate to rotund, 1 - 2.5 mm long; petals 6, oblong, obovate, 2-auricled at base clasping filaments of opposite stamens, divided at apex into 2 acute lobes, 1 - 1.5 mm long; stamens 6, ca 1 mm long. Female flowers: sepals and petals as in male; staminodes 6, minute, linear, ca 0.3 mm long, glabrous; carpels 6, ca 0.75 mm long, glabrous; style slender, recurved. Drupes dark green to dark blue, compressed, pisiform, rotund in outline, 4 - 6 mm in diam., sculptured outside with 4 lateral rows of tubercles, glabrous; style-scar subbasal; endocarp dorsally keeled with branched ridges; style-scar subbasal.

Fl. & Fr. May - Aug.

Distrib. India: Assam, Nagaland, Tripura and Meghalaya.

Myanmar and S. China to Malesia.