Scientific Name
Other Names
Life Form
Family
Food- Tender shoots and leaves are eaten cooked with rice along with fermented soyabean. Medicine- Stems and leaves useful in eye trouble. Decoction is taken with little salt drunk to check vomiting of blood. Shoot with other ingredients used to restore virility. Poultice used for boils.
Bangaldesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan
Thrives in and near ponds, canals and reservoirs, prefers places with constant or periodically high humidity and so may be found in swamps, shallow ditches, and fallow rice fields.
It is perennial herb prostrate and spreading often rooting at nodes.
Stem is creeping, up to 100 cm long, often purplish.
Leaves are simple, opposite, fleshy, lance-shaped to oblong, 1-15 cm long, 0.3-3 cm wide.
Flowers are small, white, clustered in leaf axils.
Fruit is compressed, heart-shaped utricle with small seeds.
Flowering: May – July,
Fruiting: July – September.