Coromandel is a perennial plant with weak stems 1 metre or more long which sprawl along the ground unless they find something to support them.
The plant is harvested from the wild for local use as a food and medicine. It is sometimes sold in local markets during the rainy season.
It is often cultivated as an ornamental and ground cover plant in tropical and subtropical areas. It is very tolerant of cutting and can be grown in a lawn, so long as there is not too much traffic on it.

Known Hazards

None known

Habitat

Roadsides and riverbanks, in semi-waterlogged areas as well as well drained cultivated areas.

Cultivation Status

Ornamental, Wild

Cultivation Details

Grows best in the humid areas of the tropics.
In parts of Africa, where it has become naturalized, it grows in areas where the mean annual rainfall is in the range 1,200 - 2,100mm.
Plants may not survive without irrigation in areas with a dry season of 4 months or more.
An easily grown plant, preferring a relatively dry soil and a position in full sun or partial shade.
Thrives on sedentary soils, coastal alluvium, sandy loams and clays.
Plants can succeed in peat soils with 85% organic matter and a pH as low as 3.5 - 4.5.
A shade-loving plant, optimum photosynthesis occurs between 33 - 50% full sunlight and the plant can grow, albeit slowly, with only 10% sunlight.
Established plants are drought tolerant.
The plant has escaped from cultivation and become naturalized in many parts of the tropics. It has become naturalized in disturbed forest communities in some areas, such as Hawaii.
With no weeding, its proportion in the undergrowth of a young oil palm plantation increased in a period of 2 years from 25% to 84%.
A rapidly growing perennial, shrubby herb, growing up to 1 metre tall but able to grow over shrubs that are up to 3 metres tall - smothering all the vegetation in the herbaceous layer.

Edible Uses

Leaves and young shoots - cooked.
The leaves and flowers are eaten as a pot herb.
The leaves are consumed as a popular vegetable, mixed with beans, groundnut or sesame paste.

Medicinal

The plant is used as a traditional medicine in many parts of its range
Chinese medicine shops sell it as 'kaw kua chai'.
Modern investigation of the plant has shown that it contains several active compounds.
Phytochemical screening yielded carbohydrates, proteins, alkaloids, tannins, steroidal saponins, flavonoids and triterpenoids.
Another study yielded a megastigmane glucoside, asysgangoside, from the aerial parts, with other known compounds.
The leaf extract has been shown to relax histamine-precontracted trachial strips and to exhibit antiinflammatory activity.
The study justified its use in Nigerian folk medicine as a treatment for asthma.
Another study suggests that the leaves provide benefit through a bronchospasmolytic effect of the terpenoid compounds.
The juice of the plant, combined with lime and onion juice, is recommended for dry coughs with an irritated throat and discomfort in the chest.
The sap of the plant is used as a vermifuge and is applied externally to swellings and rheumatic joints.
Sap of the leaf is put up the nostrils to stop a nose-bleed, and is also used as an embrocation on a sore neck.
A leaf-decoction is used in the treatment of fever-aches, epilepsy, stomach-pains, heart-pains and urethral discharge.
The pulped leaf is used as a suppository for piles.
The leaves and flowers are used as intestinal astringent.
The leaves are used in the treatment of asthma.
The plant is popularly used in many parts of Africa to ease childbirth. It is boiled and the infusion mixed with peppers then used as a syringe (vaginal douche or enema?) during the later months of pregnancy in order to ease childbirth pains
The infusion is also drunk for the same purpose
In Congo leaf-sap is placed on the stomach of women in childbirth to facilitate labour.
The powdered roots are a general remedy for stomach-pains and are used as an emetic in treating snake-bite.

Agroforestry Uses

The plant has weak stems which sprawl along the ground unless they find something to support them. They make a dense mat and so form a good, weed-excluding ground cover.
The plant can be especially useful on slopes where it can help prevent soil erosion.
The plant is not generally regarded as useful in plantations of crops such as cocoa, oil palm or rubber, nor amongst vegetables or field crops, even though its ground cover checks erosion and prevents the infestation by other, more noxious weeds such as Mimosa pigra and Imperata cylindrica.
It is liked as a naturally occurring plantation cover in some orchards, however, because the bees which pollinate the flowers of fruit trees such as starfruit or durian, are attracted to the orchard by the flowers of this plant.

Other Uses

The plant is used as a soap-substitute. It froths in water, suggesting the presence of saponins.

Propagation

Seed -
Cuttings with 1 - 3 nodes.
Single-node cuttings, buried in the soil, can produce flowers and fruit within 6 weeks.
Division of rooted stems