Growing and Harvesting Cat’s Claw
Answered by: Conrad Richter
Question from: R. Rivera
Posted on: November 6, 1999

I would like to ask a question about the herb cat’s claw. How would I go about planting and harvesting this miraculous herb? I was hoping to plant it in our yard in Sacramento, California but would also like to know if I could plant this herb in our North Jersey home. I would appreciate any information that you have to offer.

The first problem is finding authentic plants or seeds. This is not easy. Plants being sold as "cat’s claw" in the United States were proved to be something else, not the true Uncaria tomentosa, as they were labelled and sold in several U.S. nurseries recently (1999). In addition, the Peruvian government has made it illegal for anyone to export live plant material from Peru, making it difficult to source authentic material from the source.

We will continue to search for authentic material and if we find any and we are able to grow plants commercially, we will add plants to our catalogue. In the meantime, we offer dried root bark and an excellent book on cat’s claw called "Cat’s Claw, Healing Vine of Peru" by Kenneth Jones.

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