Achyranthes aspera
| Achyranthes aspera | |
|---|---|
 | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Order: | Caryophyllales |
| Family: | Amaranthaceae |
| Genus: | Achyranthes |
| Species: | A. aspera |
| Binomial name | |
| Achyranthes aspera | |
Achyranthes aspera (common names: chaff-flower,[1] prickly chaff flower,[2] devil's horsewhip,[3] Sanskrit: अपामार्ग apāmārga) is a species of plant in the family Amaranthaceae. It is distributed throughout the tropical world.[4] It can be found in many places growing as an introduced species and a common weed.[5] It is an invasive species in some areas, including many Pacific Islands environments.[6]
Description
[edit]- Habit: a wild, perennial, erect herb.
- Stem: herbaceous but woody below, erect, branched, cylindrical, solid, angular, hairy, longitudinally striated, nodes and internodes are prominent, green but violet or pink at nodes.
- Leaves: ramal and cauline, simple, exstipulate, opposite decussate, petiolate, ovate or obovate, entire, acute or acuminate, hairy all over, unicostate reticulate.
- Inflorescence: a spike with reflexed flowers arranged on long peduncle.
- Flowers: bracteate, bracteolate, bracteoles two, shorter than perianth, dry, membranous and persistent, sessile, complete, hermaphrodite, actinomorphic, pentamerous, hypogynous, small, spinescent, green.
- Bracts: ovate, persistent, awned.
- Perianth: made up of 5 tepals, polyphyllous, imbricate or quincuncial, green, ovate to oblong, persistent.
- Androecium: made up of 10 stamens, out of which 5 are fertile and 5 are scale-like, fimbriated, sterile staminodes, both alternating with each other, fertile stamens are antiphyllous, monadelphous, filaments slightly fused at the base, dithecous, dorsifixed or versatile, introrse.
- Gynoecium: it is bicarpellary, syncarpous, superior, unilocular, ovule one, basal placentation, style single and filiform, stigma capitate.
- Fruits: oblong utricle
- Seeds: endospermic with curved embryo, 2 mm long, oblong black.
- Flowering and Fruiting time: September to April
Uses
[edit]The juice of this plant is a potent ingredient for a mixture of wall plaster, according to the Samarāṅgaṇa Sūtradhāra, which is a Sanskrit treatise dealing with Śilpaśāstra (Hindu precepts of art and construction).[7]
Traditional medicine
[edit]In the Caribbean region during the 20th century, A. aspera was used in traditional medicine as a decoction tea of boiled leaves and roots.[8]
Chemical constituents
[edit]Achyranthes aspera contains triterpenoid saponins which possess oleanolic acid as the aglycone. Ecdysterone, an insect moulting hormone, and long chain alcohols are also found in Achyranthes aspera.[9]
Gallery
[edit]
Opposite leaf arrangement and seeds attached to long peduncle
Tangle of long peduncles ("devil's horsewhip") with sharp seeds
Flowers and hirsute stem
Sharp seeds adherent to glove
_(8234180889).jpg)
.jpg)
References
[edit]- ↑ BSBI List 2007 (xls). Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. Archived from the original (xls) on 2015-06-26. Retrieved 2014-10-17.
- ↑ Flowers of India
- ↑ USDA Plants Profile[link removed]
- ↑ Flora of North America
- ↑ "Achyranthes aspera". Germplasm Resources Information Network. Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture. Retrieved 2018-01-02.
- ↑ Pacific Islands Ecosystems at Risk
- ↑ Nardi, Isabella (2007). The Theory of Citrasutras in Indian Painting. Routledge. p. 121. ISBN 978-1134165230.
- ↑ Morton, Julia Frances (1981). Atlas of Medicinal Plants of Middle America: Bahamas to Yucatan. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas. p. 179. ISBN 9780398040369. LCCN 80-13503.
- ↑ Indian Herbal Pharmacopia Vol. II, Page-5.
External links
[edit]