An annual monoecious herb with milky sap throughout; branched taproot up to 80 cm long; stems simple or branched at base, yellowish-green or sometimes purplish, glabrous, erect or ascending 15 to 60 cm tall, bearing terminal flower clusters; leaves alternate, 1 to 3 cm long, 1 to 1.5 cm wide, terminal leaves often in whorls of 5, simple, sessile, serrulate, obovate or rounded at apex, margins entire or finely toothed at apex; inflorescence composed of 5 umbel-like cyathia (cup-like receptacles, each containing a flowering group), subtended by a whorl of 5 leaves, smaller than stem leaves and not as narrow at base; each branch divides into 3 branches of second order and then 2 of third order with terminal flower cluster; involucre urn-shaped, with 4 rounded glands; flowers without petals, unisexual, flowering group with a single, central pistillate flower with a gynoecium: a long stalk with 3 styles and 3-celled ovary that extends beyond involucre after anthesis; surrounded by 10 to 12 simple staminate flowers each consisting of single stamen with small bract at base; fruit a dry, dehiscent schizocarp 4 to 5 mm in diameter with 3 carpels; at maturity carpels open violently; seed obovate to ovate in outline, circular in cross-section, 2 mm long, 1.5 mm wide, dark brown to orange-brown, with surface roughened by raised fine-meshed network; hilum kidney shaped, white and very conspicuous.

Antiperiodic, cathartic and anticancerous (whole plant); febrifuge and vermifuge (leaves and stems); anthelmintic (root); purgative (oil from the seeds)

Plants For A Future

The milky sap is applied externally to skin eruptions. The seeds, mixed with roasted pepper, have been used in the treatment of cholera.