Pueraria montana var. lobata

'Pueraria montana'' var. lobata, the East Asian arrowroot, or kudzu vine''', is a perennial plant in the family Fabaceae.

Names
It is called gé (葛) in Chinese, kuzu (クズ, 葛) in Japanese, and chik (칡) or gal (갈; 葛) in Korean.

Distribution
The plant is native to East Asia (China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea), the Russian Far East, Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam), and the Pacific (New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu).

Use
The starch powder made from the East Asian arrowroot is called kudzu powder. Kudzu powder is used to make arrowroot tea in traditional medicines of China, Japan and Korea (in Korea the root unprepared is also used).

The production of this powder in Japan was concentrated among the Kuzu (国栖) people who once lived along the Yoshino River in Nara Prefecture, which gave the plant its Japanese (and later loaned into English kudzu) name.