Stephania
Encyclopedia
Stephania is a genus of flowering plant
Flowering plant
The flowering plants , also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants. Angiosperms are seed-producing plants like the gymnosperms and can be distinguished from the gymnosperms by a series of synapomorphies...

s in the family Menispermaceae
Menispermaceae
Menispermaceae, the botanical name for a family of flowering plants, has been universally recognized by taxonomists. Tubocurare, a neuromuscular blocker and active ingredient in curare, is derived from plants of this family....

, native to eastern and southern Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

 and Australasia
Australasia
Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...

. They are herbaceous
Herbaceous
A herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...

 perennial
Perennial plant
A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

 vine
Vine
A vine in the narrowest sense is the grapevine , but more generally it can refer to any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent, that is to say climbing, stems or runners...

s growing to around four metres tall, with a large, woody caudex
Caudex
A caudex is a form of stem morphology appearing as a thickened, short, perennial stem that is either underground or near ground level . It may be swollen for the purpose of water storage, especially in xerophytes...

. The leaves
Leaf
A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

 are arranged spirally on the stem, and are peltate, with the leaf petiole attached near the centre of the leaf. The name Stephania comes from the Greek, "a crown". This refers to the anthers being arranged in a crown like manner.

One species, S. tetrandra, is among the 50 fundamental herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese Medicine refers to a broad range of medicine practices sharing common theoretical concepts which have been developed in China and are based on a tradition of more than 2,000 years, including various forms of herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage , exercise , and dietary therapy...

, where it is called han fang ji (漢防己, "Chinese fang ji"). Other plants named fang ji are sometimes substituted for it. (Other varieties substituted include Cocculus thunbergii, C. trulobus, Aristolochia fanchi, Stephania tetrandria S.MOORE, Sinomenium acutun(THUNB.)). Notable among these is guan fang ji (廣防己, "Broad fang ji"), Aristolochia fanchi. This plant tends to contain toxic amounts of aristolochic acid
Aristolochic acid
Aristolochic acids are a family of carcinogenic, mutagenic, and nephrotoxic compounds commonly found in the Aristolochiaceae family of plants, including Aristolochia and Asarum, which are commonly used in Chinese herbal medicine. Aristolochic acid I is the most abundant of the aristolochic acids...

 and can cause renal failure
Renal failure
Renal failure or kidney failure describes a medical condition in which the kidneys fail to adequately filter toxins and waste products from the blood...

 and even death; it is used in TCM only with great caution. It should not be taken with NSAIDs due to possible kidney damage and/or failure.

Chemistry

Chemical investigation of Stephania rotunda Lour. growing in Vietnam in 2005 led to the isolation and structural elucidation of three new alkaloid
Alkaloid
Alkaloids are a group of naturally occurring chemical compounds that contain mostly basic nitrogen atoms. This group also includes some related compounds with neutral and even weakly acidic properties. Also some synthetic compounds of similar structure are attributed to alkaloids...

s, 5-hydroxy-6,7-dimethoxy-3,4-dihydroisoquinolin-1(2H)-one, thaicanine 4-O-beta-D-glucoside, as well as (-)-thaicanine N-oxide (4-hydroxycorynoxidine), along with 23 known alkaloids.

Selected species

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  • Stephania aculeata FM Bailey
  • Stephania bancroftii FM Bailey
  • Stephania brevipes Craib
  • Stephania capitata (Blume) Spreng.
  • Stephania cephalantha Hayata
  • Stephamia corymbosa (Blume) Walp.
  • Stephania crebra Forman
  • Stephania elegans Hook.f. & Thomson
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