Cynanchum acidum
species of plant
Cynanchum acidum is a species of flowering plant in the family Apocynaceae, typically found in the arid parts of peninsular India where it is used in religious sacrifices. The plant is religiously linked to Hinduism and is believed to be a major ingredient of the Soma in Ancient India.
Description
Cynanchum acidum is a perennial leafless, jointed shrub with green, cylindrical, fleshy glabrous with twining branches having milky white latex and with its leaves reduced to scales. Its flowers are white or pale greenish white, are fragrant and grow in umbels on branch extremities. The fruits follicles taper at both ends; seeds are flat, ovate, comose. This leafless plant grows in rocky, sterile places all over India.
Uses
As a beverage
The plant yields an abundance of a mildly acidulous milky juice, and travellers like nomadic cowherds suck its tender shoots to allay thirst. Outdated accounts hold that Cynanchum acidum is the Soma plant of the Vedas. The Rigveda, ix. says the purifying Soma, like the sea rolling its waves, has poured forth songs, hymns, and thoughts.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Cynanchum acidum” is species of plant. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Cynanchum, acidum and species, not as a finished interpretation.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 21, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q39992194. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cynanchum acidum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.