Botanical name: Portulaca suffruticosa    Family: Portulacaceae (Purslane family)

Shrubby Purslane is a perennial climbing, much-branched woody subshrub, 20-80 cm tall, with a non-tuberous, fibrous tap root, 10-20 x 0.5-1.0 cm, brownish and hard. Stems are 20-70 x 0.5-1.0 cm, climbing, woody, much branched and scabrous with scaly bark. Leaves are 1-2 x 0.1-0.3 cm, linear, cylindrical, fleshy, turgid, green and hairless, with short stalks and a line hair in the leaf axil. Flowers are borne in 2-4-flowered, stalkless clusters at branch-ends and surrounded by 3-4 involucral leaves. Flowers are 1.0-1.5 cm across, actinomorphic, hermaphrodite, stalkless, pink to red with a dark red throat. Sepals are 3-4 x 1-2 mm, ovate and fused at base. Petals are 4-5, obovate, 4-6 x 2.0-3.5 mm, stamens 8-15, free, with 1 mm yellow bithecous anthers and 2-3 mm filaments, style 3-4 mm, 4-fid. Fruit is a circumscissile capsule, 4-5 x 1-2 mm, containing 20-30 ovoid seeds, 0.7-0.9 mm in diameter, with a shiny golden luster and star-shaped surface cells. Shrubby Purslane is found in peninsular India and Sri Lanka. Flowering: June-September.

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The flower labeled Shrubby Purslane is ...