Stonebreaker

Phyllanthus amarus is a leafy herbal plant found in tropical regions in the Americas, Africa, India, China, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Its common names include gale of the wind, carry me seed, seed on the leaf, pick-a-back, stonebreaker and dukung anak, the last being Malay. It is a small annual plant growing thirty to sixty centimetres tall. Its thin branches spread out, and each carries two rows of small, elliptic-oblong leaves five to ten millimetres long, arranged alternately. The radial flowers are star-shaped and about two millimetres across. It grows well in moist soil with light shade. The page lists constituents including the flavonoids quercetin-3-glucoside and rutin, the tannins geraniin, amariin and gallocatechin, and several alkaloids such as phyllantine and securinine. It says the plant has been used in the traditional medicine of Amazonian tribes, Ayurveda and Sinhala folk medicine.