At the end of March 2014, I received an email with some pictures enquiring the identity of a herb called the Stone Breaker or Chanca Piedra otherwise botanically known as Phyllantus urinaria or Phyllantus niruri. I particularly liked the name Stone Breaker as it gave the herb an unusual flavour that spice up the interest on this herb. According to traditional medicine legend, the herb was able to break up stones, not those found on the ground, but kidney stones in the body. On top of that, it claimed to have potential benefits for treating liver problem, tumours, diabetes, and many more diseases.
Though I was not a convert of traditional medicine, these legends did elevate the position of these herbs in the weed community. Not many people paid special attention to these wayside herbaceous plants that many called weeds. The Stone Breaker was a group of similar-looking herbs from the genus Phyllantus. Some years back, I made an attempt to decode the few confusing Phyllantus species found in Singapore --- to match the correct botanical names to the pictures of the herbs. My quest was not very successful and the exploration was left aside while I move on to other topics.
The recent query on the Stone Breaker re-ignited my interest on the topic. I did another round of investigation and consolidated my findings. Based on my observations, there should be at least 3 species of weedy Phyllantus in Singapore. The best way to illustrate the differences among them would be via pictures of their features since all 3 of them look rather similar in overall appearance.
.jpg "Phyllanthus urinaria")
.jpg "Phyllanthus debilis")
.jpg "Phyllanthus amarus")
.jpg "Phyllanthus urinaria")
.jpg "Phyllanthus debilis")
.jpg "Phyllanthus amarus")
.jpg "Phyllanthus urinaria")
.jpg "Phyllanthus debilis")
.jpg "Phyllanthus amarus")
.jpg "Phyllanthus urinaria")
.jpg "Phyllanthus debilis")
.jpg "Phyllanthus amarus")
There was another type of weedy Phyllanthus with red warty fruits. It should be a variant of Phyllanthus urinaria rather than a different species judging from the rough surface of its fruits. The red-fruit version appeared to be rarer compared to the greenish-fruit version.
.jpg "Phyllanthus urinaria")
.jpg "Phyllanthus urinaria")
.jpg "Phyllanthus urinaria")
.jpg "Phyllanthus urinaria")
The old Singapore Flora checklist published in 2009 listed 3 weedy Phyllanthus, namely Phyllanthus urinaria, Phyllanthus amarus and Phyllanthus debilis. When I tried to match the names with the pictures shared online, the effort was futile as there were a lot of confusing matches between names and pictures. In the more recent published Flora of Singapore Checklist in 2022, the accepted botanical names of the 3 Phyllanthus species were changed to Emblica urinaria, Moeroris amara and Moeroris debilis respectively.
About the name Phyllanthus niruri: Based on a 1957 report, specimens of Phyllanthus niruri have never been confirmed outside the America [1]. The Phyllanthus niruri mentioned in earlier publication from India was actually a mixture of 3 species, namely Phyllanthus amarus, Phyllanthus fraternus and Phyllanthus debilis [2]. Nevertheless, researchers in this region continue to indicate Phyllanthus niruri as the subject of research in their publications [3-5]. In reality, they might be working on some other Phyllanthus species.
About the name Phyllanthus urinaria: This herb is described in the PIER website as having fruits or capsules that are rough on the surface. Of the 3 Phyllanthus species found here, only one has rough-surface fruits. It is quite clear then that this particular one should be Phyllanthus urinaria.
About the name Phyllanthus debilis: Some pictures of this herb are available at the GBIF and iNaturalist websites matched well with one set of my pictures above. Furthermore, It was described in the PIER website as having smooth surface capsules. Hence, I decided to use this name for the one of the Phyllanthus herb found here that has smooth capsules.
About the name Phyllanthus amarus: After taken care of the first 2 Phyllanthus species listed in the Singapore Flora checklist, I am left with the last one, Phyllanthus amarus. This name was described in the PIER website but the report did not describe the surface texture of the capsule. Instead the capsule was simply described as "small, depressed-globose". The name also appeared in the Flora of Pakistan website but there was no description of the capsule. Fortunately, the PROTA website did describe the capsule as smooth. With that, I have assigned my third set of picture to the name Phyllanthus amarus.
About the name Phyllanthus fraternus: I had previously used this name on my Phyllanthus debilis pictures shown above before I wrote this article. After finding out that that the name was not listed in the Singapore Flora checklist, I decided to change the label of the pictures to Phyllanthus debilis. Though Phyllanthus fraternus was described in the Flora of Pakistan website, the location is quite some distance away from Southeast Asia.
Finally, a 2010 report from Thailand [6] mentioned that 3 species of Phyllanthus, namely Phyllanthus amarus, Phyllanthus debilis and Phyllanthus urinaria were popular plants found in the local herbal markets. The 3 names matched well with the 3 species listed in the Singapore Flora checklist. In May 2023, I received an email from Joshua who shared an article that he had written in iNaturalist on his observations of the 3 Phyllanthus species in Shenzhen (China).
In conclusion, there were 3 weedy Phyllanthus species in Singapore. All of them might be referred to by the same set of common names such as Stone Breaker. As for their botanical names, I had probably made the correct connections between them and their respective pictures.
Reference:
[1] Webster GL. A monographic study of the West Indian species of Phyllanthus. J Arnold Arbor 1957;38:295-373. | Read article |
[2] Mitra RL, Jain SK. “Concept of Phyllanthus niruri (Euphorbiaceae) in Indian floras,” Bull Botanical Survey India 1985;27(1-4):161-176. | Read article |
[3] Wong BY, Tan CP, Ho CW. Effect of solid-to-solvent ratio on phenolic content and antioxidant capacities of “Dukung Anak” (Phyllanthus niruri). Int Food Res J 2013;20(1):325-30. | Read article |
[4] Omar WA, Zain SN. Therapeutic index of methanolic extracts of three Malaysian Phyllanthus species on MCF-7 and MCF-10A cell lines. Pharmacogn J 2018;10(6s):s30-s32. | Read article |
[5] Zain SN, Omar WA. Antioxidant activity, total phenolic content and total flavonoid content of water and methanol extracts of Phyllanthus species from Malaysia. Pharmacogn J 2018;10(4):677-681. | Read article |
[6] Manissorn J, Sukrong S, Ruangrungsi N, Mizukami H. Molecular phylogenetic analysis of Phyllanthus species in Thailand and the application of polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism for Phyllanthus amarus identification. Biol Pharm Bull. 2010;33(10):1723-7. | Read article |
Last updated: 31 May 2023