Parslane is small, smooth fleshy annual herb and a popular green leafy vegetable. It grows up to 30 cm in height. It has very few branches and stem is feeble, smooth, shiny and light pink in color. The leaves are simple, thick, smooth and succulent. It has yellow flowers and small fruits containing numerous black seeds.
An analysis of parslane shows it to consist of moisture 9.05 per cent, protein 2.4 per cent fat 0.6 per cent minerals 2.3 per cent, fiber 1.3 per cent and carbohydrates 2.9 per cent per 100 grams. Its mineral and vitamin contents are calcium, phosphorus, iron, carotene, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin and vitamin C
Healing Power and Curative Properties
The leaves are mildly salty, sour and contain mucilage. They are refrigerant and produce a feeling of coolness. They are useful in correcting disorders due to malnutrition. Its seeds exercise a soothing effect on the skin and the mucous membranes. They are also useful in arresting bleeding increasing the secretion as well as the discharge of urine.
Urinary Disorders
The herb is a valuable diet in dyesuria, which is marked by pain or difficulty in passing urine. The leaves are also useful in this disorder. A teaspoon of this teaspoon is given twice a day. Its seeds are useful in treating scanty urination due to excessive sweating. A teaspoon emulsion of the seeds prepared by mixing a teaspoon of the seeds in a glass of tender coconut water and administered thrice a day can cure such disorders. It also reduces the burning the sensation of cystitis.
Diarrhea and Dysentery
In diarrhea and dysentery, the seeds relive griping pain, tenesmus which is the ineffectual straining to relive the bowels and other painful effects of dysentery and mucous diarrhea. They should preferably be combination with water with other drugs of herbs like fenugreek leaves, mint juice and powdered mango seeds.
Diabetes
A teaspoon its seeds taken every day with water for three to four months can increase the body’s own insulin and help in curing diabetes.
Expectorating Blood
Its leaves are beneficial in the treatment of mild type of blood expectorant that is bleeding from mouth, nose and rectum. The juice from leaves with a teaspoon of fresh lime juice and honey is taken thrice daily.
Skin disorders
A poultice of the leaves can be applied with beneficial results to burns, scalds and many other skin diseases like boils, ulcers wounds and carbuncles. It can also be applied as a coolant in erysipelas, a streptococcal infection of the skin. Its leaves are useful in allaying irritations of the skin and in reducing swelling and pain.
Prickly Heat and Burning Sensation
Parslane is commonly used as a medicine to cool and the body during summer. The juice of its stem can be applied with gratifying results to prickly heat and to allay heat and burning of hands and feet. The paste of its leaves can also be used similarly. A poultice of the leaves can be applied to the temples as an emollient to ally pain.
