Portulaca quadrifida L. - chickenweed
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 |
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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 |