Phanera vahlii Seeds | Maloo Creeper

Massive woody climber with huge two-lobed leaves and drooping clusters of cream flowers — Maloo creeper (Phanera vahlii): Fabaceae, Himalayan foothills

LATIN NAME: Phanera vahlii

COMMON NAME: Maloo Creeper

Plant Profile

Maloo creeper is one of the largest climbers in the world, and it does not creep so much as take over: its stems thicken into cables 30 cm across. They start thin and wiry, then run up a forest tree and out along its branches for thirty metres or more, ridged and hairy and impossible to ignore. The leaves are the size of dinner plates, deeply two-lobed, velvety brown beneath and bright green above, and they hang in a curtain that shades everything below. In spring the plant produces dense, drooping clusters of pale cream flowers with a dark centre, followed by woody pods up to 30 cm long. It grows along the Himalayan foothills from Pakistan through India and Nepal to Bhutan, in sal forest and scrub, and it is one of the most conspicuous plants of that belt.

Science & Biotechnology

Phanera is the genus that has absorbed many of the climbing baulinias, and the move from Bauhinia followed molecular work showing that the climbers are not a single lineage with the trees. The genus sits in the Cercidoideae, a subfamily in which nodulation is essentially absent, so despite being a legume this plant does not fix nitrogen and should not be sold as a soil improver. The giant stem is a hydraulic solution to the problem of supplying an enormous leaf area at the top of someone else’s tree: the wood is fibrous and conducts water through very wide vessels, which is why the cut stem bleeds freely. The pods are woody and dehiscent, and the seed is dispersed by gravity and by water running off the canopy. The leaves are among the largest of any legume.

Uses & Benefits

The plant has a long practical record. The bark yields a strong white fibre used for ropes and coarse cloth, and the huge leaves are stitched together to make leaf plates and shallow bowls — the donne and khali still used for food service in parts of India and Nepal, a genuinely sustainable disposable plate. The pods and seed are eaten in times of scarcity after prolonged processing, and various parts are used in local medicine. In a garden it is a spectacular but demanding climber: it needs a very large tree or a strong structure, a lot of room, and a warm climate, and it will swallow anything within reach. It is grown in a few tropical and subtropical botanical collections for the sheer scale of the leaves.

Growing from Seed

The seed coat is hard, so nick it and soak for a day before sowing two centimetres deep in a gritty mix at 25 to 30 °C. Germination is usually within three weeks and the seedling grows fast, producing a vine several metres long in its first season. Give it a very strong support from the outset — a mature tree, a concrete pergola or a steel frame — and do not plant it against a building it could damage. Full sun and a deep, moist soil suit it best, and it needs regular water in the establishment years. It is frost-tender when young and dies back at the first hard freeze, though it may resprout from the base in a mild climate. Prune hard in late winter to keep it within bounds.

Our Take

A plant of superlatives — biggest leaves, thickest stems, fastest growth — that belongs only where there is room for something that cannot be contained.

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