Centella asiatica, commonly known as Indian pennywort, Asiatic pennywort, spadeleaf, coinwort or gotu kola, is a herbaceous, perennial plant in the flowering plant family Apiaceae. It is native to tropical regions of Africa, Asia, Australia, and islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It is consumed as a culinary vegetable and is used in traditional medicine.
Description
The stems are slender, creeping stolons, green to reddish-green in color, connecting plants to each other. It has long-stalked, green leaves; the leaf blade has a rounded apex, a smooth texture and palmately netted veins; the leaf stalk is broadened at the base into a leaf-sheath. The rootstock consists of rhizomes, growing vertically down. They are cream in color and covered with root hairs.
The flowers are white or crimson in color, born in small, rounded bunches (umbels) near the surface of the soil. Each flower is partly enclosed in two green bracts. The hermaphrodite flowers are minute in size, less than 3 mm (0.12 in), with five to six 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 three months, and the whole plant, including the roots, is harvested manually. C. asiatica has numerous common names in its regions of distribution.
