Herb. No. 082 · Apiaceae
Pantropical wetland pennywort — India, Southeast Asia, and warm Africa.
Native · South Asia · Southeast Asia · Africa
Native Also grown
OpenGentleplant
Gotu kola
Centella asiatica
A marsh pennywort eaten for skin, memory folklore, and circulation — a salad herb in the tropics.
Centella is a creeping wetland plant. Traditional Ayurvedic and Chinese use is as a brain-and-skin tonic; the leaf is also food. Triterpenes (asiaticoside) are the studied fraction. Culinary amounts are the gentlest path. It is not a dementia drug.
Flavor
Green, marshy, a little bitter-carrot — a wild salad, not a dessert tea.
Parts used
Leaf · Whole herb
In favor
- Food and medicine in one
- A pretty pond-margin plant
Against
- Rare liver reports at high extract dose
- Needs wet heat to thrive