Botanical Name Plant's Common Name Plant Family   

   MH014 : Portulaca oleracea L.

Plant Category : Herbs

Melghat's Flora's Serial No. : 24

Synonym : Portulaca aurea Hort. ex DC.; Portulaca consanguinea Schlecht; Portulaca laevis Buch-Ham.; Portulaca officinarum Crantz; Portulaca olitoria Pall.; Portulaca parviflora Haw.; Portulaca suffruticosa Thw.; Portulaca viridis Hort. ex DC.;

Plant Common Name : Ghol, purslane, verdolaga, little hogweed, red root, pursley, horse tooth amaranth

Plant Family : Portulacaceae

Description : Annual or perennial, prostrate or erect, c. 25 cm tall, succulent, glabrous, green or purplish green herb. Branches and stem with 3-20 mm rarely up to 50 mm long internodes. Leaves alternate or subopposite, closely crowded below the flowers, spathulate or obovate-oblong to linear-oblong, attenuate at the base, sub-sessile, obtuse or truncate, 3-25 mm long, 1.5-8 mm broad, thick, fleshy, glabrous, glistening white below, green or purplish-green above; stipular appendages usually absent, or rarely every minute and setaceous. Inflorescence usually in the forks of branches, cymose, with clusters of 3-6 flowers subtended by 4-leaved involucre, rarely flowers solitary and terminal. Flowers sessile, yellow, 5-8 mm across, bracteate; bracts membranous, ovate, c. 3 mm long, acuminate, white or somewhat purplish. Sepals subequal, basally united into a short, 2-3 mm long tube, keeled; lobes 2-3 mm long, slightly hooded, margin broad membranous, acute, deciduous. Petals 5, deliquescent, slightly united at the base, obovate, 5-6 mm long, 2.5-3 mm wide, yellow, emarginate with mucronulate notch. Stamens 7-12, basally somewhat united and adnate to petals, filaments c. 2.5 mm long, sensitive to touch, anthers ovoid. Ovary c. 2 mm long, half embedded in calyx tube, ovoid; style 1.5-2 mm long, stigmas 4-5, sticky, c. 1 mm long. Capsule many-seeded, 6-8 mm long, 3-4 mm in diam. Seeds shining black, c. 0.5-0.8 mm, reniform, testa tuberculate. Fl. Per. Flowers open in morning throughout the year.

Plant Location in Melghat : In stream and river bets

Medicinal Use / Activity : Its leaves are used for insect or snake bites on the skin, boils, sores, pain from bee stings, bacillary dysentery, Diarrhea, hemorrhoids, postpartum bleeding, and intestinal bleeding. Anti-cancer (Li et al., 2012)

Plant's Phytochemicals : COMPOUNDS: Noradrenaline; Calcium salts; Dopamine; L-DOPA; Malic acid; Citric acid; Glutamic acid; Asparagic acid; Nicotinic acid; Alanine; Glucose; Fructose; Sucrose; Betacyanins; Omega-3 Fatty Acid; 2'-hydroxy- 5,7-dimethoxy-3-benzyl-chroman-4-one; 2'-hydroxy-5,6,7-trimethoxy-3-benzyl-chroman-4-one; 5,2'-dihydroxy-6,7-dimethoxy-3-benzyl-chroman-4-one; 5,2'-dihydroxy-7-methoxy-3-benzylidene-chroman-4-one Kaempferol; Myricetin; Luteolin; Apigenin; Quercetin; Genistein; Genistin; Portulacanones B; Portulacanones C; Portulacanones D; Oleraceins A, Oleraceins B, Oleraceins C, Oleraceins D, and Oleraceins E; Portulosides A and Portulosides B; Beta-carotene; Glutathione; Melatonin; Portulacerebroside A; Catechol; Bergapten;

ACTIVE COMPOUNDS (7):

Quercetin;

Kaempferol;

Apigenin;

Genistein;

Luteolin;

Myricetin;

Genistin;

Plant's Current Status :

Plant's Cross Database Reference : 259142

Reference : Dhore M. A. (1984) The flora of melghat tiger reserve - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22683318 - http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=5&taxon_id=200007020

Reference : ~ Dhore MA and Joshi PA; "Flora of Melghat Tiger Reserve"; Directorate, Project Tiger, Melghat (1988); PMID :

~ Das, DC.; Sinha, NK.; Chattopadhyay JC.; Das M. and Samanta P.; "The use of medicinal plants for the treatment of Gonorrhea and Syphilis in south west Bengal of India"; International Journal of Phytomedicine (2013); 5: 14-17 PMID :

Kingdom : Plantae - Plants
Phylum : Tracheophyta
Subkingdom : Tracheobionta - Vascular plants
Superdivision : Spermatophyta - Seed plants
Division : Magnoliophyta - Flowering plants
Class : Magnoliopsida - Dicotyledons
Subclass : Caryophyllidae
Order : Caryophyllales
Family : Portulacaceae - Purslane family
Genus : Portulaca L. - purslane
Species : Portulaca oleracea L. - little hogweed

Portulaca oleracea L. - little hogweed