Madeira vine

1. How to identify Madeira vine?

Madeira vine is also known as foreign Ceylon spinach, Madeira vine potato, vine child sanqi, chuanqi, etc. It is a perennial climbing plant of the genus Basella in the family Basellaceae. It is cultivated in Yunnan, Sichuan, Hubei, Taiwan, China and other provinces, and its bulbils and leaves are eaten.

Madeira vine is a small fleshy vine, with round stems; young stems are green and turn brown after growing, and adventitious roots easily form at the internodes. The leaves are alternate, thick and fleshy, heart-shaped, smooth and hairless, with short petioles. Its appearance is very similar to white Ceylon spinach (that is, green Malabar spinach). The difference from Ceylon spinach is that Madeira vine can grow tumor-like green bulbils in the leaf axils, about 3-4 cm in diameter. During summer, spike inflorescences emerge above the leaf axils, with inflorescences up to 20 cm long; the flowers are small, drooping, with a five-petaled corolla, white-green, and the flowering period lasts 3-6 months, but it does not set fruit, and it is very difficult to obtain seeds.

2. How does Madeira vine reproduce?

Madeira vine usually uses asexual reproduction methods, including bulbil propagation and cutting methods, with cutting propagation as the main method.

(1) For bulbil propagation, pick bulbils from the leaf axils of a grown plant or bulbil clusters at the stem base. If bulbil clusters are used, they need to be separated into individual bulbils and planted directly in the field, or raised in seedling pots; after about 3 weeks, they become seedlings.

(2) For cutting propagation, take two-node leafy branches from the upper and middle parts of the plant where the internodes are shorter as cuttings. The seedbed should use loose, uncontaminated loam or sandy loam, and cuttings should be inserted at 10 cm square spacing. After insertion, keep warm and moist, with the greenhouse controlled at about 20°C. New roots grow in about 5-7 days, and seedlings form in about 20 days. For small-scale home planting, place the cuttings in a bottle of clean water at room temperature indoors, change the water once every 1-2 days, and after roots grow within a week, they can be planted in flower pots.