Phyllanthus niruri L.

Global description

Phyllanthus niruri is an erect annual herbaceous plant entirely glabrous, about fifty 50cm high. The simple leaves are alternate and distichous, oblong, base asymmetrical and rounded tip, and paler on the underside. The flowers with separate sexes are axillary on twigs, males at the top, females at the bottom. They are small, greenish, without petals, sepals and reduced to a disc lined with glands bearing stamens or ovary. The fruit is a trigonous flattened globular capsule. It contains 6 seeds wedge covered with small warts, a dark grey to brown.

Cotyledons

Cotyledons are petiolate, elliptical, with rounded base and apex.

Underground system

A taproot

Stem

The stem is cylindrical in section, smooth and furrowed, glabrous. The branches are slightly angular.

Leaf

The leaves are simple and alternate, distichous, numbering from 15 to 35 per branch (the branches may look like compound leaves). Petiole very short, measuring 0.4 to 0.7 mm long. The base of the branches is framed by two short stipules linear-lanceolaten attenuated, brownish color. The limb is oblong, rounded and markedly asymmetrical at the base and rounded at apex. It measures 5 to 17 mm long and 2.5 to 9 mm wide. The lateral veins are hardly visible. It is a pale green on its underside. Both sides are smooth.

Flower

The flowers on the branches, solitary in leaf axils. The sexes are separate. The male flowers are at the bottom of the twig, the female flowers at the top. These flowers are small and greenish, all with 6 sepals elliptic to cuneate apex. The male flowers are made of a disc composed of 6 glands in cut edges rounded lobes 6-7 stamens and 3 are attached to the anthers which have horizontal dehiscence. The female flowers consist of a central disc composed of three glands that look like little hands; the ends are divided into four lobes that resemble fingers. The style is very short.

Fruit

The fruit is a globular capsule flattened to 3 cells, 2 to 3 mm in diameter that hangs beneath the branches, in leaf axils. It is straw-colored. It contains 6 seeds, at 2 per cell.

Seed

The seed is wedge-shaped measuring 1 to 1.8 mm long. It is marked from 6 to 7 longitudinal lines on the back and covered with small warts. Its color varies from dark gray to brown.

Origin

Phyllanthus niruri is native to tropical Central and South America.

Worldwide distribution

Beyond tropical America, this species is present in western, eastern and southern Africa, in the islands of the Indian Ocean (Madagascar, Mayotte, Mauritius, Reunion, Seychelles), India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, Indonesia and the Pacific Islands.

https://www.gbif.org/species/5381945