Pareira-Brava

Pareira-Brava, a lofty climbing shrub inhabiting the forests of Peru and Brazil, which bears bunches of oval berries resembling grapes. The botanical source was for some time obscure, but it is now known that the plant yielding the root of commerce is the Chondodendron tomentosum (ord. Menispermaceæ). The plant has a long branching woody root, of a yellowish to greenish brown colour internally, and this has attained considerable reputation in medicine. The root contains a bitter principle, and is used in chronic catarrhal affections of the bladder and in calculus. The decoction and fluid extract are most usually employed, but it is sometimes given in the simple form of powder.—This medicinal root has been referred, but erroneously, also to the allied Cissampelos parvira, a climbing shrub of the West Indies and Mexico, and to the Botryopsis platyphylla—both of which plants have roots possessing similar properties.