Biophytum reinwardtii (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia
Introduction

Protologue: in Peters, Reise Mossamb. Bot. 1: 85 (1862).

Vernacular names

South-East Asia; in Malesia found in Peninsular Malaysia, Java, Sulawesi, and eastern New Guinea.

In India, the whole plant is used against fever and rashes.

An annual herb, up to 35 cm tall, stem simple, smooth; leaves 6-11(-14)-jugate, rachis 2.5-6(-9.5) cm long, terminal leaflets largest, obovate, 7-18 mm × 4-7 mm, asymmetrical, midrib excentric, curved, other leaflets elliptical, symmetrical, base truncate, hairy; peduncle up to 6.5(-12.5) cm long, up to 8-flowered.
Pedicel up to 7 mm long, strigose and glandular, sepals ovate-lanceolate, 2.5-4 mm long, acute, in fruit 3-8-nerved, as long as the fruit, petals elliptical to oblanceolate, 6-8 mm × 1-2 mm, apex rounded to emarginate, base yellow, above white to red to purple-veined, tristylous, styles in the middle form 0.5-0.8 mm long.
Capsule 2-3 mm × 2-2.5 mm, apically puberulous and minutely glandular on the ribs.
Seeds 1-3 per cell, 1 mm × 0.5 mm, with transverse, tuberculate ridges.

B. reinwardtii occurs in shady locations, on waste land, river-banks and under humid thickets, up to 800 m altitude.

[135] Burkill, I.H., 1966. A dictionary of the economic products of the Malay Peninsula. Revised reprint. 2 volumes. Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Vol. 1 (A—H) pp. 1—1240, Vol. 2 (I—Z) pp. 1241—2444.