It is commonly known as shoreline purslane[6] or (ambiguously) "sea purslane," in
English, dampalit in
Tagalog and 海马齿hǎimǎchǐ in Chinese.
Description
Sesuvium portulacastrum is
vine up to 30 centimetres (12 in) high, with thick, smooth stems up to 1 metre (3.3 ft) long. It has smooth, fleshy, glossy green
leaves that are linear or lanceolate, from 1–7 centimetres (0.39–2.76 in) long and 2–1.5 centimetres (0.79–0.59 in) wide.[7][4]
Its flowers come from at the leaf axils, they are tiny, 0.5 centimetres (0.20 in) in diameter and pink or purple in colour.[7][4] They close at night time or when the sky is cloudy, they are pollinated by bees and moths.[3]
The fruit is a round
capsule, it has tiny black seeds that do not float.[3]
Taxonomy
It was first published as Portulaca portulacastrum by
Carl Linnaeus in 1753.[8] Six years later Linnaeus transferred it into Sesuvium,[9] and it has remained at that name ever since, with the exception of an unsuccessful 1891 attempt by
Otto Kuntze to transfer the species into a new genus as Halimus portulacastrum.[10]
Sesuvium portulacastrum is eaten in the
Philippines, where it is called dampalit in
Tagalog and "bilang" or "bilangbilang" in the
Visayan language.[12] The plant is primarily pickled and eaten as atchara (sweet traditional pickles).
^USDA, NRCS (n.d.).
"Sesuvium portulacastrum". The PLANTS Database (plants.usda.gov). Greensboro, North Carolina: National Plant Data Team. Retrieved 11 November 2015.
^
abPrescott, A. & Venning, J. (1984). "Aizoaceae". Flora of Australia. Vol. 4. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.
^Chandrasekaran M., Senthilkumar A., Venkatesalu V "Antibacterial and antifungal efficacy of fatty acid methyl esters from the leaves of Sesuvium portulacastrum L. ". European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences. 15 (7) (pp 775-780), 2011.
^Jes B. Tirol's Kapulongnan Binisaya-Ininglis/Dictionary Bisaya-English, p. 71, 2010