Phyllanthus amarus

What to Eat

Edible parts: Fruit, Leaves

The fruit and leaves are edible, with the fruit being especially eaten by children.

Where to Find It

A tropical plant. It grows in sunny places. In Fiji it grows near sea level and up to 50 m altitude. It grows in flooded rice fields. In southern China it grows between 100-600 m above sea level. In Yunnan.

Africa, American Samoa, Asia, Australia, Benin, British Indian Ocean Terr., BIOT, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Central Africa, Central African Republic, CAR, Central America, China, Chuuk, Congo DR, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, East Africa, East Timor, Fiji, FSM, Ghana, Guinea, Guinée, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Himalayas, India, Indochina, Kiribati, Laos, Madagascar, Maldives, Marquesas, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Mozambique, Nepal, Pacific, Pakistan, Palau, Philippines, Rotuma, Sao Tome and Principe, SE Asia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, St Lucia, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tuvalu, West Africa, West Indies,

How to Identify

An annual herb. It grows 10-40 cm high. It almost lies along the ground. It is woody near the base. The leaves are in one plain. The flowers hang from one side of the branch. Flowers are separately male and female. The fruit is round and flattened. It splits into three. The seeds have ribs.

How to Grow

Requires a sunny position. Sandy loam and black soils with a pH of 7.5 - 8 are considered best. The plant has explosive seed capsules that propel the seeds some distance from the plant. Originally native to tropical America, the plant has spread to become a weed, often invasive, in many areas of the Tropics. The plant is reported to be a troublesome weed in pulses, soya bean, groundnut, cereals, sugar cane, cassava, taro, sesame, sunflower and cotton.

Propagation: Seed - requires light to germinate. Sow in situ - the small seed is usually mixed with sand. Germination is often less than 50%; germination of freshly harvested seeds is slower than that of older seeds. Seeds dried to 8% moisture content and treated with turmeric rhizome powder under ambient conditions maintained viability for up to 6 months; untreated seeds stored poorly.

Medicinal Uses

Phyllanthus amarus has been used in the traditional medicine of various cultures, including Amazonian tribes, Ayurveda and Sinhala folk medicine.

Other Uses

The leaves, rubbed between the hands, give a lather. Chloroform and ethanolic extracts of the aerial parts and roots showed significant larvicidal activity against Anopheles stephensi larvae. An ethanolic root extract possessed significant activity against Tribolium castaneum, a pest of stored grain. Norsecurinine, isolated from the aerial parts, showed significant activity against spore germination of the crop fungi Alternaria brassicae, Alternaria solani, Curvularia pennisetti, Erysiphe pisi and Helminthosporium frumentacei under glasshouse conditions. The plant is said to have sand-binding properties.

Phyllanthus amarus is a leafy herbal plant found in tropical regions in the Americas, Africa, India, China, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia. Commons names for this plant include gale of the wind, carry me seed, seed on the leaf, pick-a-back, stonebreaker, and dukung anak (Malay).

Production

In Central African Republic plants fruit in March.

Other Information

Fruit eaten especially by children.

Notes

There are about 750 Phyllanthus species. They are mostly in the tropics. It is used as a medicine to stimulate milk production. It has anticancer properties.

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