Scientific Name
Other Names
Life Form
Family
Food- Leaves cooked as vegetable, made into refreshing drinks and tea. Medicine- Leaf and root extract used in Ayurvedic medicine, also has a valuable and sought-after Vayasthapana effect - helping to retard the aging process. Cosmetics/Essential oils- Extracts of the plant are added to cosmetic masks and creams to increase collagen and firm the skin
Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan
Thrives in shady, wet, grassy places, river margins, at an elevation of 200–1900 m.
It is creeping herb low-growing ground-covering plant that doesn't have woody structures.
Stem is slender, creeping stems called stolons. These green to reddish-green runners connect individual plants, allowing the herb to form a dense ground cover. They're hairless and lie flat against the ground. pen_spark
Leaves are shovel shaped emerging alternately in clusters at the stem nodes. The runners lie along the ground and leaves with their scalloped edges rise above on long reddish petioles.
Flowers are greenish- to pinkish-white, borne in dense umbels (clusters in which all the flower stalks arise from the same point) on separate stems in the summer.
Seeds are pumpkin-shaped nutlets.
Flowering and Fruiting: April–October.