Purple heart is a plant originating from Mexico and is now widely commercialized as an ornamental plant and used as a ground cover in tropical and subtropical regions including North America, Central America, South America, the West Indies, South Africa, the Canary Islands, Madeira, and Myanmar. This plant is one of the ornamental plants that can be kept indoors, because it is considered effective in improving air quality by cleaning and filtering volatile pollutants from indoor air. Furthermore, the purple heart plant also has good health benefits. Traditionally, purple heart is believed to improve blood circulation and act as an anti-inflammatory, antitoxic, and antioxidant supplement. In Malaysia, the Ayta people of Porac Pampanga use this plant to treat eye pain.

Purple heart is a species found growing in the understory of disturbed forests, along roadsides, riverbanks, and coastal forests. It grows in warm tropical and subtropical regions. It prefers full sun to partial shade, with an average annual rainfall of 800-3,500 mm. Sunlit locations will produce more striking leaf color. Purple heart does not grow well in locations with temperatures below 8-10 °C. It is heat tolerant but is damaged by frost and winter cold. It can grow and adapt to a wide range of soil types (loam, sandy loam, and limestone), but thrives best in moist, well-drained soils with a pH between 5 and 7.8, but is drought tolerant.

• Fibrous roots.

• The stem is round, succulent, fleshy, dark purple, initially erect, then creeping along the ground.

• The leaves are ciliated, rounded sheaths. The leaf blade is oblong, with a pointed tip. The upper surface is deep dark purple while the underside is bright purple tinged with pink. The leaf base wraps around and encircles the stem and is covered with fine, soft hairs. The upper leaves are somewhat smaller.

• The flowers are in small, dense cymose clusters with 2 or 3 bracts. The pedicels are umbellate, pilose towards the apex. The petals are oblong. The corolla is 3 ovate and pink to rose-purple in color. The stamens are 6, with 3 epipetal filaments and 3 attached to the corolla margin, varying in size from glabrous to pubescent. The inflorescence is terminal and in the axil of the upper leaf. It opens only in the morning.

• The fruit is a glabrous capsule, 3.5 mm in size.

• The seeds are very small (2.5-3 mm).

• Propagation is carried out vegetatively (stem cuttings and root fragments). 

Treats eye pain, improves blood circulation. Has antioxidant, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and antitoxic properties. 

Anthocyanins, flavonoids, tannins, steroids.