Galot

The tubers and leaves are eaten. An alkaloid, ceropegine, is present in tubers which makes them bitter, somewhat like raw turnips.

Tuber globose. Stem trailing or twining, usually glabrous. Leaves orbicular, ovate, lanceolate to linear, 3-6 cm long, slightly cordate, fleshy, glabrous, subsessile to petiolate. Cymes pedunculate, 3-5 flowered arising between the petioles, peduncle 1.2-2.6 cm long. Pedicels 3-7 mm long. Sepals 2-2.5 mm long, lanceolate, acute. Corolla 1.2-2.5 cm long, whitish green, purple striate, lobes deep purple, 44.5 mm long, narrow, pilose. Outer corona lobes rounded to shortly acute, inner lobes linear, c. 2 mm long. Follicles 10 x 0.4-0.5 cm, taper towards apex, glabrous. Seeds 8-9 mm long, flattened, ovate-oblong, margin broad, membranous, coma 2.5-3.8 cm long.

Distribution: Pakistan (Punjab); India (Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, W. Peninsula).

Fl.Per.: July-August.