Portulaca oleracea
Portulaca oleracea L., Sp. Pl. 1: 445. 1753; DC., Prodr. 3: 351. 1828; Boiss., Fl. Or. 1: 757. 1867; Dyer in Hook. f., Fl. Brit. India 1: 246. 1875; Gamble, Fl. Madras 1: 47. 1935; Kirtikar & Basu, Ind. Med. Pl. 1: 135. 1918; Cooke, Fl. Bombay Pres. 1: 72. 1908; Kashyap Fl. Lahore 42: 1936; Bailey, Stand. Cyclop. Hort. 3: 2766. 1950; Maheshwari, Fl. Delhi 71. 1963; Dhaliwal & Sharma, Fl. Kullu Dist. 161. 1999; Kaur & Sharma, Fl. Sirmaur 162. 2004; Singh & Sharma, Fl. Chamba Dist. 188. 2006; Nair, Fl. Bashahr. Himal. 41. 1977; Kaul, Weed Fl. Kashm. Valley 60. f. 20. 1986; Fl. North Amer. @ eFloras.org vol. 4: 499; Fl. Pak. @ eFloras.org
Annual or perennial, prostrate or erect, ca. 25 cm tall, succulent, glabrous, green or purplish green herb. Stem and branches with 3-20 mm long internodes. Leaves alternate, subopposite, spathulate or obovate-oblong to linear-oblong, attenuate at base, subsessile, obtuse or truncate, 3-25 mm x 1.5-8 mm, thick, fleshy, glabrous, glistening white below, green or purplish green above. Stipular appendages usually absent (or rarely very minute). Inflorescences usually in the forks of branches, cymose, with clusters of 2-8 flowers subtended by 4-leaved involucre, rarely flowers solitary and terminal. Flowers sessile, actinomorphic, bisexual, yellow, 3-8 mm across, bracteate; bracts membranous, ovate, ca. 3 mm long, acuminate, white or somewhat purplish. Sepals 2, subequal, basally united into a short, 2-3 mm long tube, keeled; lobes 2-3 mm long, acute, deciduous. Petals 5(-6), deliquescent, slightly united at base, obovate, 4-5 mm x 2-3 mm, yellow, emarginate with mucronulate notch. Stamens 6-12(-20), basally somewhat united and adnate to petals; filaments ca. 2.5 mm long; anthers ovoid, small. Ovary ca. 2 mm long, half embedded in calyx tube; style 1.5-2 mm long, stigmas 3-6, sticky, ca. 1 mm long. Capsule many seeded, 6-8 mm long, 3-4 mm in diameter, unilocular with circumscissile dehiscence. Seeds shining black, ca. 0.5-0.8 mm, reniform, tuberculate.
Common Names: Common Purslane; Kulfe Ka Saag, Salunak, Lunak, Khurfa (Hindi)
