eChapters

Family : Euphorbiaceae

Flowering: July-September

Fruiting: September-December

Botanical description: The plant is a small erect herb, growing up to 60 cm or more. The ascending branches are angled and velvet-hairy. Leaves are broadly ovate, nearly triangular, rather coarsely toothed. Leaf stalks are as long as or longer than the 3-5 cm long blades. Flowers are stalkless, borne on erect axillary spikes longer than the leaves. Male flowers are minute, crowded distally. Female flowers are scattered along the inflorescence axis, each subtended by a conspicuous semicupular leaf-like toothed green bract nearly 7 mm long. Capsule is bristly and1 mm broad.

Ecology: It is mostly found in hot, low to medium altitude, sandy margins of rivers, seasonal water courses and pans, usually in shade of thickets, on rocky hillsides and often in disturbed ground and as a weed of cultivation.

Family : Amaranthaceae

Flowering : October-December

Fruiting : December-January

Botanical description

The plant is an erect, straggling or subscandant herb. The leaves are ovate, elliptic, obtuse, acute and finely attached to the stem on both sides. The flowers are greenish white in colour, bracteolate having membranous blade and seeds are reddish brown in colour, sub-cylindric at apex and rounded at the base.

Family : Rutaceae

Flowering: March-April

Fruiting: (Next Year) April-June

Botanical Description: The plant is a medium sized tree with spines of 1-2 cm long. The leaf is composed of three leaflets. The leaflets are oval, elliptic with 2.5-6.5 cm petiole, terminal one is larger. Flowers of the tree are white or greenish-white. The fruits are ovoid, hard and about 5-7.5 cm in diameter. The flowers appear during March-April and the tree bears fruits towards October, ripening in April.

Family : Amaranthaceae

Flowering: August-October

Fruiting: November-January

Botanical description: The plant is a perennial sub-erect, diffuse or prostrate herb, growing upto 0.3-2 meter high, branched from the base and often also from above. Stem and branches are densely woolly with whitish or yellowish, shaggy hairs. Leaves are alternately arranged, nearly circular to lanceo shaped-elliptic, wedge-shaped at the base, rounded to sharp at the tip. Flower spikes are stalkless, solitary or usually in clusters in leaf axils, silky white to creamy in colour, forming a long inflorescence leafy to the ultimate spikes.

Ecology: This plant is commonly found in open forests on mountain slopes, on waste and disturbed ground and coastal scrubs. The plant is widespread in drier parts of the tropics and subtropics.

Use: Leaves are collected, fried and then eaten

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.

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.

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 : 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.

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: 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: 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-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: 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: 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: 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 : Moraceae

Flowering: December-January

Fruiting: June-July

Botanical Description: The plant is an evergreen tree that grows up to 20-30 meter tall and 80-200 cm in diameter with evergreen, alternate, glossy and leathery leaves reaching up to 9 inch long. Leaves are oval on mature trees. All parts of the plant contain sticky and white latex. Inflorescence is solitary, borne axillary on special lateral short leafy shoots arising from older branches. Fruits are large arising from the tree trunk and weighting about 10-50 kg. the exterior of the fruit is green or yellow when riped and composed of numerous hard, cone like points attached to a thick and rubbery, pale yellow or whitish wall.

Family : Oxalidaceae

Flowering: July-September

Fruiting: October-December

Botanical Description: The plant is a small evergreen tropical tree that grows upto 25 feet in height. The compound leaves are soft, medium green, spirally arranged around the branches in an alternate fashion. The leaflets are sensitive to light and fold inward at night. The flowers are small and bell shaped, with five petals that have whitish edges. The fruit is fleshy, have a thin and waxy skin, five lobbed, ovate to ellipsoid with attractive yellow-orange in colour.

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: 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.