Scientific name: Euphorbia hirta

Asthma weed, common spurge, cats hair is a slender-stemmed, annual hairy plant with many branches, growing up to 40 cms tall, reddish or purplish in color. Leaves are opposite, elliptic-oblong to oblong-lancelike, 1-2.5 cm long, blotched with purple in the middle, toothed at the edge. Flowers, purplish to greenish in color, dense, axillary, short-stalked clusters or crowded cymes, about 1 mm in length. Capsules are broadly ovoid, hairy, three-angled, about 1.5 cm. Asthma weed has traditionally been used in Asia to treat bronchitic asthma and laryngeal spasm, though in modern herbalism it is more used in the treatment of intestinal amoebic dysentery. This was a curious little plant to me during my childhood, as it produced the milky white sap. The plant is very common in the entire South Indian region. This photograph was taken on 29th September, 2011 just outside the lab where i am working.