English: Climbing flax.
Name: Hugonia mystax.
Tamil: Mothira-kanni, refers to the resemblance to a ring.
Roots: astringent, bittersweet.
Name: mystax in Latin menas moustache.
Region: India and Sri Lanka.
Habitat: tropical dry forests, scrub, evergreen forests.
BotanyScandent shrub, sometimes liana-like over other trees.
Stem: branchlets are leafless at the base with a pair of recurved spines resembling a moustache.
Flowers: yellow; flowers according to the rains, twice a year.
Fruits: orange to red in the rainy season.
Pollination by bees.
Dispersion: by birds.