eChapters

Family: Brassicaceae

Flowering: June-August

Fruiting: August-October

Botanical description: The plant is an annual herb that reaches at a height upto 2 ft, with many branches on the upper part. The leaves are entire, the upper ones are stalkless whereas the lower ones are stalked. Flowers are white to pinkish in color, small, 2 mm across, borne in long racemes. The fruits are small pods, obovate, with two seeds per pod. The seeds are brownish red in colour and become slimy when soaked in water. Garden cress is native to mediterranean region, introduced and naturalised, cultivated throughout the world. Within India, it is cultivated as a salad plant and found as an escape.

Family: Cucurbitaceae

Flowering: July-October

Fruiting: November-January

Botanical description: The plant is a vigorous, annual, climbing herb. It grows fast and may begin to flower only two months after seeding. The vine is branched and climbs by means of tendrils along the stem. The foliage is covered with soft hairs and has a foul musky odor when crushed. The leaves of the plant are up to 15 inches wide, circular in overall shape, with smooth margins, a few broad lobes, or with undulate margins. Leaves have a velvety texture because of the fine hairs, especially on the undersurface. The flowers are white in colour and borne singly on the axils of the leaves, the males on long peduncles and the females on short peduncles. Fruits are of various shapes like bottle or dumb bell-shaped, rounded or elongated.

Family: Convolvulaceae

Flowering: Most part of the year

Fruiting: Most part of the year

Botanical description: The plant is a semi-aquatic tropical herbaceous plant. The stem of the plant is thick, fistular or spongy, rooting at the nodes trailing on moist soil or mud, or floating on water. Leaves are variable in shape and size,such as ovate-oblong, ovate- triangular, lanceolate, elliptic-oblong.The flowers are trumpet-shaped, 3-5 cm diameter, usually white in colour with a purple center.Capsule ovoid, glabrous and 2-4 seeded.

Family: Acanthaceae

Flowering: October-December

Fruiting: January-February

Botanical description: The plant is a stout aquatic perennial herb growing up to 1-2 m high. The stems are erect, unbranched and hairy near swollen nodes. The leaves are sessile, linear- oblong, stalkless, 10-15 cm long, occur in whorls of 6 at each node on the stem. Straight, yellow, 4 cm long spines are present in the axil of each leaf. Flowers are purple in colour, occur in 4 pairs at each node and open in opposite pair.

Family: Hydroleaceae

Flowering: November-January

Fruiting: February-April

Botanical description: The plant is an annual, aquatic, ascending or prostrate herb, sparingly branched growing up to 1.2 meters in length, and rooting at the lower nodes. The leaves are lanceolate, 4-10 mm long, and pointed at both ends. The flowers are very numerous, bright blue in colour, 8-10 mm across and borne in racemes. The sepals are hairy, green, oblong-linear, and about 5 mm long. The capsule is ovoid, surrounded by the persistent sepals, and contains numerous, minute, oblong seeds.

Family: Violaceae

Flowering: Round the year

Fruiting: Round the year

Botanical description: The plant is a perennial herb The plant grows upto to 60 cm high, often branched and spreading. Leaves are sub-sessile, linear to lanceolate, 1-5 cm long with recurved to revolute margins or occasionally flat. The flowers are pink in colour with 5 petals. Capsule is subglobose, 4-9mm long with 5-12 seeds pitted between ribs.

Family: Malvaceae

Flowering: July-October

Fruiting: October-February

Botanical description: The plant is a robust branched, annual herb that grows 4-7 ft tall and almost as broad. Leaves are dark green in colour, about 6 in across, deeply dissected into 3-5 narrow lobes. The stems, branches, leaf veins, and leaf stalks are reddish purple. The flowers of the plant are yellow with deep purple centre and about 3 inches across. The sepals of the flowers are prominent, fleshy, bright red in colour. Capsule is ovoid, 1.5 cm across with brownish seeds.

Family: Molluginaceae

Flowering: March-June

Fruiting: July-October

Botanical description: The plant is a prostrate annual herb, growing upto to 50 cm long. Leaves are in pseudo-whorls of 3-6 or opposite; leaf blade is spoon-shaped or elliptic, obtuse or acute apex with short leaf stalks. Flowers are greenish white in colour and about 5mm to 8mm across. Capsule is ellipsoid, shorter than the sepals. Seeds are brown and finely granulate.

Ecology: It is commonly found in sandy soil, especially alone river banks, occasionally found in swampy localities, in dried-up pools and ditches and in rice-fields. The plant loves to grow on sandy soil.

Family: Asparagaceae

Flowering: October-January

Botanical description: The plant is an evergreen perennial shrub. It is stemless or with a short stem up to 1 m tall, producing a rosette of leaves of about 40 - 180cm long. The leaves are sword-shaped, 1-1.8 m long and 10-15 cm broad at their widest point, narrowing to 6-7 cm broad at the leaf base, and to a sharp spine tip at the apex. The flowers are greenish to creamy white, 4 cm long, and strongly scented.

Family: Apiaceae

Flowering: April-June

Fruiting: July-August

Botanical description: The plant is an perennial, erect, dichotomously branched, aromatic herb, growing up to 15-45 cm high. Leaves are sessile, oblanceolate-oblong, spinosely- serrate and glabrous. Inflorescence heads numerous, cylindric, about 10 x 5 mm with the involucral bracts exceeding the heads. Petals are white or greenish in colour. Fruits are greenish, subspherical and about 1.5 mm in diameter.

Family: Asteraceae

Flowering: December-January

Fruiting: January-February

Botanical description: The plant is a prostrate herb. The stem of the plant is succulent, with short ascending flowering hairy branches. The leaves are narrowly linear-oblong, acute or obtuse, entire or subcrenate with 2-5cm long. Heads yellow in colour, axillary and terminal, sessile with 7-18mm diameter.

Family: Compositae

Flowering: Aug-December

Fruiting: January-April

Botanical description: The plant is an annual herb. The stems are weak, erect or often branched at the base, smooth or sparingly hairy with 10 to 60 cm tall. This species is recognized by the sow-thistle like leaves.

Family : Gramineae (Poaceae)

Flowering: November

Botanical description: The plant is a perennial tree that grows up to 20-53 m in height and 8-18 cm in diameter. There are 1-3 spines at each branch node. Leaves are thin, linear, up to 20 cm long, 1-1.8 cm wide with a long pointed tip. The branches of the plant spread out from the base and areal roots reaching up to nodes. The length of the internodes is about 15-46 cm and is hollow.

Ecology: It is fairly common in mixed forests or dry hills, often found in hills and shady slopes and alluvial plains.

Family: Cucurbitaceae

Flowering: March-June

Fruiting: May-August

Botanical description: The plant generally spreads on the ground with cylindric and grooved stem. The leaves are rounded to reniform, 6-25cm in diameter with 5 rounded shallow lobes and coarsely hairly. The flowers are monoecious and yellow in colour. Fruits usually lagre, oblong, oval, flattened or globular in size. Seeds are ovate, obscurely margined with white or yellow in colour.

Family: Apiaceae

Flowering: December-January

Fruiting: February-March

Botanical description: The plant is a herb, growing to a height of about 2 feet with a spread of 9 inches. The leaves are bright green in colour, fan shaped and become more feathery towards the top of the plant. The flowers are small and white, formed in umbel-like clusters. Fruit is globose, glabrous and seeds are flattened dorsally in transaction.

Family: Tiliaceae

Flowering: July-September

Fruiting: October-November

Botanical description: The plant is an erect, annual herb reaching up to 1-2 m height. The stems are usually purplish white. Leaves are ovate-lanceolate, 5-12 cm long, pointed at the tip and rounded at the base. The flowers are borne in small groups in the axils of the leaves about 4 mm long. The capsules are round to ovoid and about 1 cm in diameter.

Family: Commelinaceae

Flowering: July-October

Fruiting: November-January

Botanical description: The plant is a diffuse, branched, sub-succulent herb growing upto 30-60 cm. Leaves are 3-5 x 2-3.5 cm in size, ovate or elliptic-ovate, base rounded or almost flat with blunt or pointed tip. Spathe is about 1.5 cm across, funnel-shaped, flat at apex and velvet-hairy. Sepals are nearly equal, about 2.5 mm long, outer ones linear, inner ones orbicular. Flowers are small, petals are blue in colour, larger ones about 4 x 4.5 mm with broadly ovate. The seeds are 5 and closely pitted.

Family: Commelinaceae

Flowering: August-September

Fruiting: September-October

Botanical description: The plant is a small diffused or straggling herb. Stem usually with a line of pubescence. Leaves are linear, 3.7-7.5 cm long, acute or acuminate, glabrous with prominent midrib and acute-obtuse at apex. Flowers are blue in colour and very small. Capsules are oblong and 4.3 mm long. The capsule is having 2 seeds, 2.5 mm long, ellipsoid, cylindrical with white appendage at each end.

Family : Araceae

Flowering: The plants flowers in Late wet season (September-October)

Botanical description: The plant is a tuberous bulb, herbaceous plant growing about 3-5 ft in height. The plant has large leaves. The leaves are heart shapes, 2-3 ft long with a long stalk of about 3 ft height. The flowers are yellowish-white spathes and spadixes are frequently produced.

Ecology: It is commonly found in damp, shady places and also cultivated. The plant is widely distributed throughout the hotter parts of India.

Family: Cleomaceae

Flowering: May-July

Fruiting: August-October

Botanical description: The plant is a tall annual herb growing up to a meter high, more or less hairy with glandular hairs. The leaves are compound, with 3-5 leaflets. Leaflets are obovate, elliptic-oblong, very variable in size. Flowers are yellow in colour, 10-15 mm across with 6-20 mm long pedicels. Fruits are 30-75 mm long, 3-5 mm broad, linear-oblong, erect, with tapering at both ends. Seeds many, 1.25mm across with dark brown colour.

Family: Cleomaceae

Flowering: July-October

Fruiting: December-February

Botanical description: The plant is an erect herbaceous annual herb growing up to 1.5 m in height. Leaves are alternately arranged and stalked. Each leaf has 3-7 leaflets, which are pinnately dissected and stalkless. Inflorescence is quite showy, and is usually up to 30 cm in length. The flowers have long stalks, ovate or elliptic petals either purplish or white in colour. The fruit is a long-stalked, dry, spindle-shaped capsule. Seeds are many, 1.5 mm across, with a shallow and narrow cleft.

Family: Lauraceae

Flowering: January Fruiting: February

Botanical description: The plant is a moderate sized tree growing up to 10-20 metres. Leaves are mostely oblong, usually 10-12.5 cm long, acuminate or acute, glabrous with shining above and acute base. The flowers are 5-6 mm long with pubescent pedicel. The tepals are pubescent, deciduous in fruits.

Ecology: The plant is occasionally planted and commonly cultivated as vegetable in the tropical countries including India.

Use: Leaves are used in different curries and recipes for special aroma.

Family: Fabaceae

Flowering: December-February

Fruiting: February-April

Botanical description: The plant is an annual herb, much branched and viscous hairy. The plant grows up to 20-50 cm high and has small feathery leaves on either side of the stem. The flowers are bluish purple in colour, 6-7 mm long on slender peduncles. Pods oblong, one seedpod contains two or three peas.

Family: Chenopodiaceae

Flowering: November-January Fruiting: February-April

Botanical description: The plant is a fast-growing, upright and weedy annual herb. The leaves are variables in appearance. The first leaves, near the base of the plant, are toothed and 3-7 cm long and 3-6 cm broad. The leaves on the upper part of the flowering stems are entire and lanceolate-rhomboid with 1-5 cm long and 0.4-2 cm broad. The flowers of the plant are 1-1.2 mm across, in short axillary spikes and often forming a terminal thyrse. Seeds are black, depressed with an obscure horizontal keel.

Family: Apiaceae

Flowering: August-October

Fruiting: November-January

Botanical description: The plant is a small creeping herb with shovel shaped leaves emerging alternately in clusters at the stem nodes. The runners lie along the ground and the inch long leaves with their scalloped edges rise above on long reddish petioles. The insignificant greenish- to pinkish-white flowers are borne in dense umbels (clusters in which all the flower stalks arise from the same point) on separate stems in the summer. The seeds are pumpkin-shaped nutlets 0.1-0.2 cm long.

Ecology: It is commonly seen in shady, damp and wet places such as paddy fields and in grass thickets and distributed throughout India.

Use: Leaves and young shoots are collected, roasted then eaten

Family: Amaranthaceae

Flowering: August-October

Fruiting: November-January

Botanical description: The plant is a herb, growing up to 60-75cm height, erect, branching with oval or lanceo-shaped, with hundreds of tiny flowers packed in dense spikes of silver- white flowers which usually stand above the foliage. They are beautiful plants with soft, dense feathery spikes, produced in profusion. Leaves are lanceolate, linear, acute to acuminate tapering into slender petiole. Seeds are several, black in colour and shining.

Family: Brassicaseae

Flowering & Fruiting: August-March

Botanical description: The plant is having a short stem, enlarging into a spherical edible tuber. Basal cauline leaves are broadly ovate, not overlapping on globose stem, about 10-45 x 3-25 cm across with cuneate base.

Ecology: The plant is a herb, widely cultivated as vegetable in the tropical countries including India. The plant loves to grow in late winter season.

Family: Brassicaseae

Botanical description: The leaves of the plant is having stout nerves, densely congested into a subglobose or ellipsoid head which is edible.

Ecology: The plant is a herb, widely cultivated as vegetable in the tropical countries including India.

Use: Leaves are fried separately or with other vegetables, and then eaten

Nutritional Value: The plant is rich in vitamin B and minerals.The nutritional value of the plant is presented below. 100g of the plant leaves carries:

Family: Brassicaseae

Flowering: November-February Fruiting: February-March

Botanical description: The plant is a herb with white edible mass of abortive flowers aggregated on thick branches of the inflorescence.

Ecology: It is widely cultivated as vegetable in the tropical countries including India. The plant grows in winter season.

Use: Leaves are fried or made into curry and consumed. Inflorescence is used in various types of preparations.

Family: Brassicaceae

Flowering: September-November

Fruiting: December-February

Botanical description: The plant is an annual herb with stems reaching up to 1.5 m tall. Stems are erect, reddish-purple below, greenish-red above, hairless, arising from large thickened taproot up to 10 cm in diameter. Leaves are large alternately arranged and hairless, upper smaller. Lower leaves are up to 25 cm long, pinnately cut, with small prickles above and below. Flowers are yellow in colour, borne in racemes at the end of branches with 2 cm across. The pods are stout, 5-9 cm long bearing 30-80 seeds with whitish, yellow or brownish in colour.

Use: Leaves are fried with oil then eaten and also chopped leaves and stems are dried in shade, stored in an earthen pot for consumption.

Family: Nyctaginaceae

Flowering & Fruiting: Most parts of the year, mostly dry winter season

Botanical description: The plant is a prostrate herb with diffuse inflorescences. The stem of the plant is glabrous or minutely pubescent and often purplish. The leaves are in unequal pairs, broadly ovate with obtuse or rounded apex. Flowers are very small, purplish red to reddish pink or nearly white, bell-shaped beyond the constriction.

Ecology: It is a common weed found near dry and warm river valleys; along roadsides, near habitations, in and along cultivated fields and in open cleared patches in forests. It is distributed throughout India.

Family: Cucurbitaceae

Flowering: October-November

Fruiting: December-January

Botanical description: The plant is a annual climbing herb, having stems up to 6 metres long that scramble over the ground or climb on other plants, supporting themselves by means of tendrils. Leaves are roundish, kidney-shaped, base deeply heart-shaped. Upper surface is rough, lower surface shortly bristly, 5-7-lobed, with long and hairy stalk. Tendrils are slender and rarely simple. Flowers are yellow in colour, calyx tube 10-15 mm long with spreading petals ending in a short point. Fruits large, succulent, densely hairy when young, with a thick waxy deposit when mature.

Family: Caesalpiniaceae

Flowering: February-March

Fruiting: April-May

Botanical description: The plant is a moderate sized tree growing up to 20-40 ft tall and 10-20 ft wide with a spreading crown of briefly deciduous leaves which are 10-15 cm across and rounded with lobed ends and heart shaped bases. The leaves are shaped like a cow’s hoof. The flowers are white or purple in colour with one petal variegated yellow, 5-10 cm across and carried in clusters at the branch tips. The flowers often make their first appearance in late winter while the tree is bare of leaves. Seeds of the plant are sub-orbicular in shape.

Family: Caesalpiniaceae

Flowering: April-June

Fruiting: December-March

Botanical description: The plant is a climber growing up to 10-30 m long. The woody stem can get as thick as 20 cm. The spreading tout branches are covered with rusty fine hairs. The stout tendrils are coiling and occur in pairs. Large leaves are 10-45 cm, 2-lobed with a broad cut. The flowers are white, 2-3 cm across, turn yellow when old and borne in rounded clusters. Fruit is a flat woody pod with fine rusty hairs, 20-30 cm long.

Family: Caesalpiniaceae

Flowering: September-February

Fruiting: February-March

Botanical description: The plant is a moderate sized tree with ashy or dark brown bark. Leaves are often oblong, about 5-18cm, deeply lobed from one third way down to nearly the base with scarcely overlapping. Flowers are purple and large on terminal panicled racemes. Pods are 15-30×18-25 cm long, narrow below, somewhat broadening upwards.

Family: Basillaceae

Flowering: May-September

Fruiting: October-February

Botanical description: The plant is a twining succulent herb with green stem and petioles. Leaves of the plant are broadly ovate and green to purplish in colour. Flowers are pinkish or purple in colour. Fruits are berries, ovoid or depressed-globose, turns black after ripening with deep purple juice.

Family: Poaceae

Flowering & Fruiting: The plant flowers after about 90-100 years. Flowering and fruting occurs in wet season

Botanical description: The plant is a perennial tree growing up to 20-53 m in height and 8-18 cm in diameter. There are 1-3 spines at each branch node. Leaves are thin, linear, up to 20 cm long, 1-1.8 cm wide with a long pointed tip. The branches of the plant spread out from the base and areal roots reaching up to nodes. The length of the internodes is about 15-46 cm and is hollow.

Ecology: It is cultivated and naturalized throughout India. Plant loves to grow in moist soils.

Family: Meliaceae

Flowering: February-May

Fruiting: June-July

Botanical description: The plant is a tree. The leaf of the plant is about 20-38 cm in length, leaflets 5-9 pairs and obliquely lanceolate. Flower is white in colour and fragrant. The plant bark, leaves and flowers are bitter in taste.

Family: Araceae

Flowering: July-August

Fruiting: November

Botanical description: The plant is a herb, growing about 90 cm in height. It produces 2 - 3 leaves, 5 - 30cm or more in size with a flowering stem 30 - 50cm long. Leaflets are lanceolate, acuminate and oblique, uniting in an intramarginal nerve. Fruiting head 5 cm long, ovoid, berries are initially green clustered fruits finally ripening to bright red.

Family: Acanthaceae

Flowering: September-December

Fruiting: January-April

Botanical description: The plant is an erect annual herb extremely bitter in taste (all parts of the plant). It grows erect to a height of 1-4 ft. with dark stem. The leaves are glabrous, lanceolate, pinnate, with 8.0 cm long and 2.5 cm broad. Flowers of the plant are small, white-purple or spotted purple in colour, spreading axillary and terminal racemes or panicles and acute at both ends. Seeds numerous, sub quadrate and yellowish brown in colour.

Family: Amaranthaceae

Flowering: Throughout the year

Fruiting: Throughout the year

Botanical description: The plant is an annual herb with erect stems growing upto 10-80 cm in height. The leaves are triangular-ovate to narrowly rhombic, 2-7 cm long, 1.5-5.5 cm wide, hairless, with a narrow and small narrow notch. The flowers of the plant are green, in slender, paniculate spikes, in leaf axils or at the end of branches. Fruit is nearly round, about 1.3-1.5 mm in size.

Ecology: The plant is a fairly common weed on waste ground and roadsides and distributed throughout India. The plant is also cultivated during summer season.

Use: Leaves and young shoots are collected, roasted and eaten

Family: Amaranthaceae

Flowering: June-August

Fruiting: September-December

Botanical descripion: The plant is an erect tropical annual herb with long-stalked leaves, growing up to 5 ft tall. The leaves grow up to 5 inch long, are notched or rounded at the tips. The flowers are whitish-green or red white, the seeds are very small, shining, black or red- brown in colour.

Family: Amaranthaceae

Flowering: June-August

Fruiting: September-December

Botanical description: The plant is an annual herb with sometimes red tinged erect stems, sometimes ascending, 30-150 cm long, usually branched. The leaves are ovate to rhombic- ovate, elliptic, lanceolate-oblong, or lanceolate, blades 1-12 cm long, 0.89-6 cm wide and smooth. The stem and its branches carry spines. Flowers of the plant are green, and are in axillary clusters in the lower part of the plant and in unbranched or branched spikes in the upper part. The lower clusters are entirely without stamens as the lower flowers of the spikes, the upper flowers in the spikes are staminate. Seeds are dark brown or black in colour.

Family: Amaranthaceae

Flowering: June-August

Fruiting: September-November

Botanical description: The plant is an annual erect herb that grows upto 1 meter in height. The stem is grooved and often redish. The leaves are long-petioled, ovate or elliptic, acute or subacute with base shortly cuneate to attenuate. The flowers are in axillary and terminal red or green panicled spikes with up to 20 cm long. Seeds are black in colour, shining and compressed or subspherical with thick margin.

Ecology: The plant being commonly used as leafy vegetables, is cultivated throughout the country. The plant loves to grow in soil rich with organic materials. The plant is commonly cultivated in summer and it grows luxuriantly in rainy season.

Family: Amaranthaceae

Flowering: November-December

Fruiting: January-March

Botanical description: The plant is a herb, reaches heights of over 1 meter tall with fleshy oval shaped leaves that are sometimes pointed at the tips. It is having a deep maroon colour in the center of the leaf with streaks of red, purple and green. The plant produces feathery purple, magenta or red flowers from the central stalk which is packed with edible seeds. The flower buds are edible, once they mature and become bushy.

Ecology: The plant is commonly used as leafy vegetables and cultivated throughout the country. The plant loves to grow in the sandy soil in winter season. It is also cultivated in left over potato fields.

Use: Leaves and young shoots are cut into small pieces, cooked with salt and chilly and then eaten. Sometimes the leaves and shoots are mixed with vegetables in cooking.

Family : Amaranthaceae

Flowering: Most part of the year

Fruiting: Year round

Botanical description: The plant is an evergreen creeper, herbaceous and perennial, growing up to 15 – 30 cm in height and spreading to form a growth mat about 45cm wide or more. Stems are prostrate or erect and moderately branched, hairless below, generally hairy above and in leaf-axils. The leaves are inverted-lanceolate or narrowly elliptic, acute at apex, narrowed at the base into a poorly defined petiole, mostly 2-6 cm long and 0.6-2.0 cm wide. Round or short-cylindrical flower heads lie stalkless in leaf axils, 5-10 mm long and 5-7 mm wide.

Use: Young leaves and shoots are collected, fried and eaten as green vegetables

Family: Amaranthaceae

Flowering: July-October

Fruiting: November-January

Botanical description: The plant is a perennial herb. The plant is a much branched prostrate herb, branches often purplish, frequently rooting at the lower nodes. The leaves are simple, opposite, somewhat fleshy, lanceolate, obtuse or subacute, glabrous and shortly petiolate. The flowers of the plant are small, white and in axillary clusters. Fruits are compressed obcordate utricles, with suborbicular seeds.

English Name: Node Flower Allmaina

Family: Amaranthaceae

Flowering: May-June

Fruiting: June-July

Botanical description: The plant is an annual herb. It is erect and rising, 10-50 cm tall. Stem is branched from or near the base. The Leaves are obovate, oblong, or linear with 1.5-6.5 mm long and 0.3-2.5 cm wide. Flowers of the plant are greenish or orange-red in colour with 3-7-flowered cymes. Seeds are single, black and shining with 1.5-2 mm in diam.

Ecology: The plant is a common weed widely distributed in forests and cultivated lands.

Family : Amaryllidaceae

Flowering: November-December

Fruiting: January-February

Botanical description: The plant is a herb. The leaves of the plants are flat, linear with sheaths, about half of their length. Flower of the plant is white or greenish white with a short pedicel. The plant is having bulbs with membranous outer scales in the axils of which do exist 10-12 lesser bulbs.

Family : Amaryllidaceae

Flowering: December-January

Fruiting: January-February

Botanical description: It is a herb. The leaves of the plants are cylindric, fistular and look like tubes. Flower of the plant is white or greenish white with a short pedicel.

Ecology: The plant is commonly cultivated along the river banks during winter season. The plant loves to grow in sandy and loamy soil.

Use: Young leaves and shoots are collected, fried then eaten. The leaves and the flowering stalks are used for various preparations and curries.