CondurangoMarsdenia cundurango

Did you know?

• Condurango is usually translated as "condor vine," and its English names, condor vine and eagle vine, carry the same idea^{[3, 4, 5]}.

• At least ten different plants were known as condurango in Colombia; the genuine bark was condurango blanco, "white condurango"^{[6, 8]}.

• Botanists named the vine twice in 1872, as Gonolobus cundurango and as Marsdenia cundurango^{[1, 2]}. In 2020 it moved again, and its accepted name is now Ruehssia cundurango^{[1, 7]}.

• Cut the stem and a sticky, milky juice seeps out, a hallmark of its plant family^{[4, 9]}.

• Older books placed condurango in the milkweed family, which botanists have since merged into the dogbane family^{[1, 4, 6, 9]}.

• Its bark tastes bitter and aromatic, which puts condurango in the old tradition of bitters^{[4, 6, 10]}.

Origins and history

Condurango is a twining, woody vine that climbs into the tallest trees; botanists also describe it as a scrambling shrub^{[1, 4]}. It grows 10 to 30 feet long, its stem can grow an inch or more thick^{[4, 6]}, and when it is cut it bleeds a sticky, milky juice, as many plants in the dogbane family do^{[4, 9]}. Its heart-shaped leaves are hairy on top and silky and downy underneath, and its flowers grow in loose clusters^[4]. It grows wild in the tropical forests of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru^{[1, 4]}.

Condurango bark reached the United States from Ecuador in 1871 and soon became known to American pharmacists^{[4, 5]}. Within a year, botanists had given the vine two scientific names. One was Gonolobus cundurango, published by Triana in 1872. The other was Marsdenia cundurango, published the same year by the botanist Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach^{[1, 2]}. In 2020 botanists moved the plant to the genus Ruehssia, and its accepted name is now Ruehssia cundurango^{[1, 7]}.

The part used is the bark, which comes in thin, curved pieces with a bitter, aromatic taste^{[4, 6]}. It was stripped from the stem by pounding it with a mallet and then dried in the sun^{[6, 11]}. American pharmacy books often spelled it cundurango^{[4, 5]}. The genuine bark was known as condurango blanco, "white condurango"^{[6, 8]}. Pharmacists made it into a fluid extract, a wine and a simple decoction^{[5, 6, 11]}. The bark was recognized in the German Pharmacopoeia and listed in the British Pharmaceutical Codex, and its fluid extract was official in the US National Formulary^{[6, 11]}. By the 1920s it was described mainly as a bitter tonic for the stomach^{[4, 5]}.

That places condurango in a long line of bitters. Bitters are aromatic preparations built on bitter plant substances, often glycosides, and they have been used for generations as tonics, appetizers and digestives^[10]. Condurango's bitter glycosides and aromatic bark fit that tradition closely^{[4, 6, 10]}.

Traditional uses

Clinical studies of condurango in people are still few, but its tradition as a bitter for the stomach goes back more than 150 years^{[4, 5, 6]}.

• A bitter for the stomach

  American pharmacy books of the late 1800s and early 1900s described condurango bark as a tonic for the stomach, and it is still classed as a stomachic, an herb taken for the stomach. Condurango supports healthy digestion.*^{[4, 5, 7, 8]}

• Appetite

  Bitters have long been taken as appetizers, and condurango is traditionally used to encourage the appetite. Condurango supports a healthy appetite.*^{[8, 10]}

• Bark preparations

  The dried bark was traditionally made into a fluid extract, a concentrated liquid preparation of the bark, or into a condurango wine or a decoction.^{[5, 6, 11]}

Plant compounds

Condurango bark owes its bitterness to glycosides that 19th-century chemists called condurangin^{[4, 5, 6]}. Early analyses also isolated a sterol-like compound named conduransterin, and reported traces of alkaloid-like substances^{[4, 5, 6]}. Like other members of the dogbane family, the living vine carries a milky latex in its stems^{[4, 9]}.