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Goose Weed
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Goose Weed
ative Photo: S. Kasim
Common name: Goose Weed, Chickenspike
Botanical name: Sphenoclea zeylanica    Family: Sphenocleaceae (Goose Weed family)
Synonyms: Pongatium indicum, Rapinia herbacea

Goose Weed is a branched annual herb, growing up to 1.5 m tall with hollow stems. Roots are fibrous, white to brown. Leaves are lanceshaped, narrowly ovate to elliptic, up to 12 x 5 cm, hairless, margin entire, stalk up to 1.5 cm long. Flowers are borne in conical-cylindric spikes up to 12 cm long. Flowers very small, white, greenish or pink yellow. Fruit is a capsule, 4-5 mm in diameter, splitting below the sepals, leaving the base attached to the rhachis. Goose Weed inhabits wet places near pools, pans, irrigation channels, swamps and floodplains. It is found in S and SE Asia and Africa.

Identification credit: S. Kasim Photographed in Puzhal Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

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