Aristolochia clematitis From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Aristolochia clematitis, (European) Birthwort, is a twining herbaceous plant in the Aristolochiaceae family, which is native to Europe. The leaves are heart shaped and the flowers are pale yellow and tubular in form. The plant seeks light by ascending the stems of surrounding plants. Medicinal problems It was formerly used as a medicinal plant (though poisonous) and is, now occasionally found established outside of its native range as a relic of cutivation. A recent study suggests that itis the cause for thousands of kidney failures in Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia where the plant is unintentionally consumed through flour. This was discovered afier a clinic for obesity in Belgium used aristolochic acid, a component of this plant, as a diuretic. After a few months, some of the patients experienced kidney carcinoma and kidney failure. See also = Balkan nephropathy Gallery Aristolochia clemati Scientific classification Kingdom: Plantae (unranked): Angiosperms (unranked): Magnoliids Order: Piperales Family: Aristolochiaceae Genus: Aristolochia Species: A. clematitis Binomial name Aristolochia clematitis LHabitus Habitus Flowers Retrieved from "http//en. wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aristolochia_clematitis&oldid=479492224" Categories: Aristolochia | Flora of Europe | Medicinal plants | Poisonous plants | Piperales stubs Hidden categories: Articles lacking sources from December 2009 | Allarticles lacking sources | Articles with 'species' microformats | Articles lacking sources from June 2010 = This page was last modified on 29 February 2012 at 16: = Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization,