Taxonomy: Plantae > Tracheophyta > Equisetopsida > Caryophyllales > Amaranthaceae > Alternanthera > A. sessilis

Description: Decumbent herbs, with a narrow line of whitish hairs down each side of the stem and branches (at least when young) and tufts of white hairs in the branch and leaf axils, otherwise glabrous, striate, terete below, more or less tetragonous above, green to pink or purplish, in drier situations with slender, more solid stems, prostrate, decumbent or erect, more or less much-branched, to in wetter places ascending or most commonly prostrate with stems, rooting at the nodes, more or less fistular, with numerous lateral branches; when floating very fistular, the stems attaining a metre or more in length and over 1 mm, thick with long clusters of whitish rootlets at the nodes. Leaves elliptic-oblong to oblanceolate, apex obtuse, base attenuate into a petiole, crenate, glabrous. Spike sessile, solitary or 2-3 together; bracts and bracteoles similar, 1 mm long, broadly ovate, acute, glabrous. Flowers yellowish red; tepals equal, ovate, acute, glabrous, 3-nerved at base; Stamens 5 (2 filaments anantherous) at anthesis subequalling the ovary and style, the alternating pseudostaminodes resembling the filaments but usually somewhat shorter. Achenes obovoid, emarginate at apex; seed orbicular, discoid, brown, shining, faintly reticulate.

Flowering and Fruiting: December - March

Uses: is a popular leafy vegetable, and is used as a folk medicine plant in southeast Asia . Juice of the plant is an ingredient in medicinal hair oils The species also serves as good ground cover and fodder.

Cultivation: wild/cultivated.

References

http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org

https://indiabiodiversity.org