Family: Tiliaceae
Synonym: Melochia erecta Burm. f.
Bengali/Vernacular name: Tiki-okra, Tiki okka.
English name: Chocolate-weed, Wire bush, Red weed.
Description of the Plant: An annual small herb, up to 1 m tall, young parts sparsely hairy, then glabrescent. Leaves variable in shape, ovate, ovate-lanceolate, apex acute, base obtuse to truncate. Flowers on densely crowded head-like clusters, pink with a greenish-yellow center, sometimes white with a greenish-yellow center. Fruit a capsule, globose or subglobose, loculicidally 5-valved, seeds brown, one in each locule.
Plant parts Used: Leaf, stem, root.
Traditional
Uses: A decoction made with the roots of the plant is taken three times
a day (5 ml amount each time) until the dysentery is cured.
An extract made with the plant; gargling is done with that extract three times
a day until the gingivitis is cured.
Leaves and roots are used for poulticing in cases of smallpox.
A decoction of the leaves is used to stop vomiting.
Paste prepared from the leaves is applied to swelling treatment.
Fresh juice extracted from the leaves and stems of the plant is taken twice a
day (5 ml amount each time) for five days to treat irregular menstruation.
A decoction of the plant is applied in folk medicine as a cure for abdominal
swelling, and snake bites.
The sap is applied as an antidote to wounds.
Seeds of the plant are used to treat stomachache.
A leaf decoction is prescribed in a compound mixture of herbs against urinary
disorders.
Distribution: It is common all over the country.
Is this plant misidentified? If yes, please tell us….
