Biophytum sensitivum (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia
Introduction

Protologue: Prodr. 1: 690 (1824).

Synonyms

Indonesia: daun kucingan (Sumatra), krambilan (Javanese), kurang-kurang (Moluccas)
Philippines: damong-bingkalat (Tagalog), damon-huya (Bisaya), mahihiin (Iloko)
Laos: dok han
Thailand: chi yop tontaan (northern), krathuep yop, khan rom
Vietnam: lá chue me, chua me lá me, ta lang.

Widely distributed in the Indo-Malesian tropics, common throughout Malesia, but not yet recorded for New Guinea.

The whole plant is used in Malesia and Thailand as an anti-inflammatory in the treatment of sore throat, abscesses, chronic wounds and fever.

An annual herb, up to 35 cm tall, stem simple, smooth.
Leaves 7-12(-14)-jugate, rachis 5-10(-16.5) cm long, sensitive to touch, plying downwards, terminal leaflets falcate-obovate, 8-18 mm × 3-10 mm, asymmetrical, midrib excentric, other leaflets elliptical, symmetrical, base truncate, glabrous; peduncle up to 14 cm long, up to 10-flowered, glandular hairy.
Pedicel 1.5-3.5 mm long, sepals ovate-lanceolate, 4-7 mm long, acute, strigose and glandular-hairy, in fruit 5-9-nerved, 1.5-2 times as long as the fruit, petals lanceolate, 5-7 mm × 1-2 mm, truncate, yellow, sometimes with purplish lines, tristylous, styles in the middle form 0.5-1 mm long, often clasping the anthers of the longer filaments and tearing them off.
Capsule 3-4 mm × 2 mm, apically puberulous and minutely glandular-hairy on the ribs.
Seeds 0-3 per cell, 1 mm × 0.8 mm, transversely tubercled and ridged.

B. sensitivum occurs in shady localities, in waste land, along riverbanks and under humid thickets, up to 250 m altitude.

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