Plant · P-903

Shatavari

Asparagus racemosus

Shatavari is a spiny, scrambling, climbing perennial in the asparagus family, native across tropical and subtropical Asia from Pakistan and India to Indonesia, found from lowland forest edges up to about 1200 metres in the Himalayan foothills, and grown chiefly for its cluster of fleshy tuberous roots. It climbs to about 7 metres given support, in full sun or semi-shade, on sandy, loamy or clay soil that is mildly acid to mildly alkaline and well drained, tolerating both dry and consistently moist conditions; hardy roughly to zone 8. Young shoots are cooked as a vegetable and the tubers candied or made into root preparations, but its far larger use is medicinal - a soothing tonic for the digestive, respiratory and female reproductive systems, rated among the highest medicinal values in its reference database, and one of the most widely traded Ayurvedic roots, which has raised conservation concern over wild-collection pressure. It carries a cross-allergy risk for anyone sensitised to asparagus or other Asparagaceae, and a randomized trial excluded participants with a history of breast or cervical cancer given its traditional use as a reproductive tonic, though the same trial found no significant change in estradiol, FSH or testosterone over eight weeks and no adverse effect on liver, kidney or thyroid markers. It does not self-sow and does not spread by rhizome runners - it is dioecious so seed set needs separate male and female plants nearby and increase in cultivation is only by division of the tuberous crown or by hand-sown seed.