Tridax procumbens (PROSEA)
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Introduction |
- Family: Compositae
Vernacular names
- Mexican daisy, coat buttons (En)
- Indonesia: gletang (Indonesian), katumpang (Sundanese, Javanese)
- Malaysia: kancing baju (Peninsular)
- Thailand: tintukkae (Suphan Buri).
Distribution
Originally from Central America; introduced and now naturalized in many tropical countries.
Uses
Proposed as a cover crop, but its actual use and value are questionable. The leaves are cooked and eaten as a vegetable, and are also useful as a fodder. They are used medicinally against bronchial catarrh, dysentery, and diarrhoea. Leaf juice possesses antiseptic, insecticidal, and parasiticidal properties.
Observations
Perennial herb with creeping stems which are obliquely erect at the apex, up to 75 cm long. Leaves opposite, ovate-elliptical, 0.5-5 cm long, coarsely serrate or lobed, hispid. Inflorescence a terminal, solitary head, about 2 cm in diameter, on peduncle 10-30 cm long, with ray and tubular flowers; involucre campanulate, about 3-seriate; flowers with yellow corolla; pappus bristles long-plumose. T. procumbens is found in sunny, dry locations, especially sandy and rocky sites like roadsides, railways, dunes, and waste places, up to 1000 m altitude. Occasionally it is a troublesome weed.
Selected sources
8, 27, 70, 148, 174.
Authors
M.S.M. Sosef & L.J.G. van der Maesen
