Botanical name: Cleome viscosa      Family: Cleomaceae (Spider Flower family)
Synonyms: Polanisia viscosa

Asian spider flower is a usually tall annual herb, up to a meter high, more or less hairy with glandular and eglandular hairs. Leaves are digitately compound, with 3-5 leaflets. Leaflets are obovate, elliptic-oblong, very variable in size, often 2-4 cm long, 1.5-2.5 cm broad, middle one largest; leaf-stalk up to 5 cm long. Racemes elongated, up to 30 cm long, with corymbose flowers at the top and elongated mature fruits below, bracteate. Flowers 1-1.5 cm across, whitish or yellowish; flower-stalks 0.6-2 cm long; bracts leaf-like. Sepals oblong-lanceshaped, 3-4 mm long, 1-2 mm wide, glandular-velvet-hairy. Petals 8-15 mm long, 2-4 mm broad, oblong-obovate. Stamens are 10-12, not exceeding the petals. Pods are 3-7.5 cm long, 3-5 mm broad, linear-oblong, erect, tapering at both ends, glandular-velvet-hairy. Asian spider flower is found in Tropical & Subtropical Asia, Africa and Australia, including the Himalayas.
Medicinal uses: The leaves are diaphoretic, rubefacient and vesicant. They are used as an external application to wounds and ulcers. The juice of the leaves has been used to relieve earache. The seeds are anthelmintic, carminative, rubefacient and vesicant. The seed contains 0.1% viscosic acid and 0.04% viscosin.

Your name:
Your email:
Your comments
The flower labeled Asian Spider Flower is ...