''Trianthema portulacastrum'' is a species of flowering plant in the
ice plant family known by the common names desert horsepurslane,
black pigweed, and giant pigweed.
It is native to areas of several continents, including Africa and North and South America, and present as an
introduced species
An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived ther ...
in many other areas. It grows in a wide variety of habitat types and it can easily take hold in disturbed areas and cultivated land as a
weed
A weed is a plant considered undesirable in a particular situation, "a plant in the wrong place", or a plant growing where it is not wanted.Harlan, J. R., & deWet, J. M. (1965). Some thoughts about weeds. ''Economic botany'', ''19''(1), 16-24. ...
.
This species is a host plant for the
beet leafhopper (''Circulifer tenellus'').
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]
Description
It is an annual herb forming a prostrate mat or clump with stems up to a meter long. It is green to red in color, hairless except for small lines of hairs near the leaves, and fleshy. The leaves have small round or oval blades up to 4 centimeters long borne on short petioles. Solitary flowers occur in leaf axils. The flower lacks petals but has purple, petallike sepal
A sepal () is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom., p. 106 The term ''sepalum'' was coine ...
s. The fruit is a curved, cylindrical capsule emerging from the stem. It is up to half a centimeter long and has two erect, pointed wings on top, where the capsule opens.
Seed dispersal
In Spermatophyte plants, seed dispersal is the movement, spread or transport of seeds away from the parent plant.
Plants have limited mobility and rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their seeds, including both abiotic vectors ...
occurs in a number of ways. One seed may be carried on the detached cap of the fruit, which floats on water. Other seeds may fall out of the remaining part of the fruit or remain on the plant after it dies and withers, resprouting the following season.[''Trianthema portulacastrum''.]
Flora of North America.
References
External links
Jepson Manual TreatmentPhoto gallery
portulacastrum
Plants described in 1753
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus
{{Aizoaceae-stub