Pillpod Sandmat

This species is used medicinally.

Herbs, annual, 30-60(-70) cm tall, usually few branched. Root fibrous, 3-5 mm. Stem branched from middle or above, ascending to erect, rarely prostrate, ca. 3 mm thick, with mixture of long yellow-brown multicellular hairs and much shorter white hairs. Leaves opposite; stipules membranous, triangular, 0.8-1.7 mm, caducous; petiole 1-3.5 mm; leaf blade lanceolate-oblong, long elliptic, or ovate-lanceolate, 10-50 × 3-16 mm, adaxially green to red, sometimes with purple blotch along midrib, abaxially gray-green, both surfaces pilose, denser abaxially, base slightly oblique, margin entire or few serrulate below middle, finely serrulate above middle, apex acuminate or obtuse. Cyathia in dense, often headlike, pedunculate cymes at upper nodes, peduncle to 25 mm, all parts very hairy; involucre campanulate, ca. 1 × 1 mm, pilose, marginal lobes 5, triangular-ovate; glands 4, red, rounded to transversely elliptic, center slightly sunken, appendages white to reddish, narrowly elliptic to obdeltoid, to 0.3 × 0.2 mm, margin entire to slightly undulate. Male flowers 4 or 5; anthers red. Female flower: pedicel short, exserted from involucre; ovary 3-angular, sparsely pilose; styles free; stigma slightly 2-lobed. Capsule 3-angular, 1-1.5 × 1-1.5 mm, smooth, shortly pilose; fruiting peduncle to 1.5 mm. Seeds subglobose-tetragonal, 0.7-0.9 × 0.4-0.5 mm, reddish, sides transversely furrowed; caruncle absent. Fl. and fr. Jun-Dec. 2n = 18*.

Pantropical weed.

150-1500 m

Roadsides, fields, scrub, open forests. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan [tropical and subtropical regions in both hemispheres].

Chamaesyce hirta (Linnaeus) Millspaugh.

hirta: hairy

Prostrate or ascending annual herb with branches up to 50 cm. A parts of the plant covered in short appressed hairs, interspersed with longer spreading hairs. Leaves ovate, 1-4 cm, often blotched with purple, particularly in the centre; margin finely toothed. Inflorescences terminal and axillary, spherical, 10-15 mm in diameter. Flowers unisexual, whitish, tinged with purple.

Common

Native to Central America; a pantropical weed

Euphorbia hirta in Panchkhal valley

Euphorbia hirta (sometimes called asthma-plant) is a pantropical weed, originating from the tropical regions of the Americas. It is a hairy herb that grows in open grasslands, roadsides and pathways. It is widely used in traditional herbal medicine across many cultures, particularly for asthma, skin ailments, and hypertension. It is also consumed in herbal tea form as folk medicine for fevers in the Philippines (where it is known as tawa-tawa), particularly for dengue fever and malaria.