Botanical Name Plant's Common Name Plant Family   

   MH015 : Portulaca quadrifida L.

Plant Category : Herbs

Melghat's Flora's Serial No. : 25

Synonym : Illecebrum verticillatum Burm. f.; Meridiana quadrifida Poir.; Portulaca anceps A. Rich.; Portulaca diptera Zipp. ex Sparo; Portulaca quadrifida var. meridiana DC.; Portulaca repens Roxb. ex Wight & Arn.; Portulaca. geniculata Royle; Portulaca. linifolia Forssk.; Portulaca. meridiana Linn. f.;

Plant Common Name : Chival, Chicken weed, Wild purslane

Plant Family : Portulacaceae

Description : Diffuse annual, prostrate, glabrous, somewhat fleshy, rooting at nodes. Tap root somewhat woody, nodal adventitious roots fibrous, up to 3 cm long. Stem and branches filiform, internodes 2-20 (-35) mm long. Leaves opposite, sessile to subsessile, ovate-oblong to elliptic-oblong or ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 3-10 mm long, 2-3 mm broad, acute or somewhat obtuse, fleshy; stipular hairs copious, silvery white, 2-10 mm long. Flowers solitary terminal, yellow, 6-8 mm across, surrounded by a 4-leaved involucre and silvery hairs. Sepals equal, membranous, basally united into a minute tube half embedded in the floral axis, ovate-oblong, 3- 4.5 mm long, 2-2.5 mm broad, obtuse. Petals 4, united at the base, pandurate, 3- 4 mm long, 1.5-2 mm broad, obtuse, yellow. Stamens 8, adnate to petals; filaments filiform, 1.5-2.5 mm long. Carpels 4, syncarpous; ovary c. 2 mm, half sunk in floral axis; style c. 2 mm long, quadrifid, with 4 linear, reclinate stigmas. Capsule 3.5- 4.5 mm long, 2.5-3 mm in diam., oblong-conical. Seeds black, c. 1 mm, reniform, somewhat papillose. Fl. Per. Aug.-March.

Plant Location in Melghat : On wet Mud flats in stream

Medicinal Use / Activity : Diuretic, to treat Rheumatism and gynaecological diseases, as a sedative, analgesic and cardiotonic, to treat fever, disorders of the urinary tract, worm diseases, as a tonic and choleretic, to treat dysentery, and to apply externally to ulcers, eczema and dermatitis

Plant's Phytochemicals : COMPOUNDS: -

ACTIVE COMPOUNDS (0):

Plant's Current Status : -

Plant's Cross Database Reference : 259142

Reference : Dhore M. A. (1984) The flora of melghat tiger reserve - http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=5&taxon_id=242340921

Reference : ~ Santosh Kumar Singh, Jay Ram Patel, Prashant Kumar Dubey and Sonia Thakur; "A review on anti-asthmatic activity of traditional medicinal plants"; IJPSR (2014); 5(10): 4109-4116 PMID :

~ Dhore MA and Joshi PA; "Flora of Melghat Tiger Reserve"; Directorate, Project Tiger, Melghat (1988); 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 quadrifida L. - chickenweed

Portulaca quadrifida L. - chickenweed