Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Apiales
Family: Umbilliferae
Botanical Name: Centella asiatica
Description:-
A tailing herb of moist places with slender stems, rounded, simple leaves and inconspicious flowers in short clusters. The small fruits are laterally compressed schizocarps, each comprising two mericarps that split apart at maturity.
The stems are slender,creeping stolons, green to reddish green in colour, interconnecting one plant to the another. It has long-stalked, green, reniform leaves with rounded apices which have smooth textures with palmately netted veins.
The leaves are borne on pericladial petioles, around 20cm. The rootstock consist of rhizomes, growing vertically down. They are creamish in colour and covered with root hairs.
The flowers are pinkish to red in colour, borne in small, rounded bunches near the surface of the soil. Each flower is partly enclosed in two green bracts. The hermaphrodite flowers are minute in size (less than 3mm). with 5-6 corolla lobes per flower. Each flower bears five stamens and two styles. The fruit are densely reticulate, distinguishing it from species of Hydrocotyle which have smooth, ribbed or warty fruit. The crop matures in 3 months and the whole plant, including the roots is harvested manually.
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