Stellaria media (L.) Vill.
Vernacular name: Chickweed, Common Chickweed, Stellaria; Marghiya/Chickweed (regional names vary)
Species Name: Stellaria media (L.) Vill.
Family: Caryophyllaceae
Habit: Small, delicate annual or biennial herb, often forming low mats in moist, shady and disturbed habitats. India Flora Online records it as abundant in mats in shady, moist and fallow fields.
Stem: Slender, weak, flaccid and much-branched, usually prostrate to ascending. A particularly useful field character is the single longitudinal line of hairs along the stem.
Leaf: Opposite, simple, ovate to elliptic, entire, usually pointed; lower leaves petiolate while upper leaves are nearly sessile. Leaves are relatively soft and delicate.
Flowering: January–April
Flowers: Very small, usually white, with 5 deeply divided petals that may appear as 10 petals; 5 sepals; stamens generally 3–10; ovary superior. The petals are often shorter than or approximately equal to the sepals. Flowers occur singly or in small axillary and terminal cymes on slender stalks.
Fruit: Small, ovoid to globose capsule, opening by several teeth; seeds brown and characteristically sharply tuberculate
Uses:
- Salves, washes or poultices of plant parts are topically applied to soothe eczema, cuts, itchy skin, minor burns and insect bites.
- Homeopathy processed plant into liquid dilution or mother tinctures to treat joint pain and itchy skin eruptions.
- Due to rich protein and mineral content plant is brewed into teas or herbal infusions that are used to promote and support respiratory and digestive health.
- Plant contains saponins, mucilage, phytosterols, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin B-complex and flavonoids like rutin and quercetin that exhibits diuretic, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
- Tender shoots and fresh raw leaves are consumed raw as in salads or as leafy green vegetable. It is an important ingredient of Japanese seven herb festival porridge (Nanakusa-no-sekku).
- It can be used as a good nutritious fodder for livestock, feed for chickens and caged birds.
- It is used by farmers as ground cover as it can act as green manure or mulch and improve soil quality for surrounding crops and improve fruit yield.
