Prostrate Gomphrena

Overview

Gomphrena serrata is native to the Americas. The precise limits of its native range in the Americas are not well defined as it has been introduced to countries in North and South America outside of its native range. It has also been introduced in India and Guam. It is a common weed of disturbed places and is reported growing in corn crops in Mexico, and is reported invasive in India, Guam and Ecuador.

Vernacular Names

Amor de soltero (Spanish), Perpétua (Brazilian), Camarún (Nicaraguan).

Agroecology

Gomphrena serrata can be found growing on lawns, roadsides, cultivated land, orchards sandy open areas, woodlands, hammocks and in gardens, from sea level to 2,400 m. It can grow on sandy soils, black clay soil with a limestone bed, hardened sandy limestone soils, on coastal dunes, on salty soils, and well-drained soil in full sun. Add grit to clay soil to improve drainage. Tolerates heat and moderate drought but performs better with regular water in summer. Soil pH is acid, alkaline, and neutral.

Morphology

• Roots - fibrous, rooting at lower nodes and internodes, usually forming a dense mat.
• Stems - prostrate, procumbent, or decumbent, pilose.
• Leaves - sessile or petiolate; petiole to 0.6 cm; blade green, obovate to oblong, 1.5-7.5 × 0.5-2.5 cm, apex rounded or obtuse, pilose-sericeous.
• Flowers - inflorescences heads white tinged with pink or red, globose to short-cylindric, 9-13 mm diameter, bractlets with denticulate crests along keel. Flowers are tube densely lanate; perianth lobes white, narrowly oblong, 4-5 mm, apex attenuate.
• Fruit - an utricle, ovoid, 2.2 mm, apex acute.
• Seeds - 1.2 mm.

Cultivation

Generative propagation is by seed. Sow at 15-18 °C in early spring. Plant out after danger of frost has passed. Can be sowed in situ after last frost date.

Chemical Constituents

Flavonoids, alkaloids, saponins, tannins, amino acids, glycosides, phenolics (oleuropein), terpenoids, and phytosterols.

Traditional Medicinal Uses

• All parts of G. serrata are used in India to treat a variety of conditions, including asthma, diarrhoea, piles, hay fever, carminative, diabetes, dermatitis and allergies.
• The extracts were shown to have anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, anticancer and antioxidant activities.