Tickweed, Asian spiderflower
Cleome viscosa
Family: Capparidaceae
What it is like
Cleome viscosa is a ANNUAL growing to 1.5 m (5ft). It is frost tender. The species is hermaphrodite (has both male and female organs). Suitable for: light (sandy) and medium (loamy) soils and prefers well-drained soil. Suitable pH: mildly acid, neutral and basic (mildly alkaline) soils. It cannot grow in the shade. It prefers dry or moist soil.
Height (m): 1.5
Where it is found
Sandy and freely draining soils in open woodland scrub and on scree slopes in dry areas.
Pantropical.
Conservation Status:
Countries/locations it is found in
How it is used
Food
Rating: 2
Leaves and young shoots - cooked as a vegetable. A sharp mustard-like flavour. The pungent seed can be pickled or used as a mustard substitute in curries. The seedpods are made into pickles. The juice of the plant is used as a condiment. An oil obtained from the seeds is used for cooking.
Oil: Oil
Condiment: the various plants that are used as flavourings, either as herbs, spices or condiments.
Medicine
Rating: 2
The leaves are diaphoretic, rubefacient and vesicant. They are used as an external application to wounds and ulcers. The juice of the leaves has been used to relieve earache. The seeds are anthelmintic, carminative, rubefacient, stimulant and vesicant. The seed contains 0.1% viscosic acid and 0.04% viscosin. A paste of the root is applied externally in the treatment of earaches.
Anthelmintic: Expels parasites from the gut.
Carminative: Reduces flatulence and expels gas from the intestines.
Diaphoretic: Induces perspiration.
Rubefacient: A counter-irritant and external stimulant, it produces inflammation and redness of the skin.
Stimulant: Excites or quickens activity of the physiological processes. Faster acting than a tonic but differing from a narcotic in that it does not give a false sense of well-being.
Other
Rating:
Oil: Vegetable oils have many uses, as lubricants, lighting, soap and paint making, waterproofing etc. This does not include the edible oils unless they are also mentioned as having other uses.
How it is grown
Prefers a light fertile soil in a warm dry sunny position with plenty of room to spread. A frost tender plant, it can be grown as a summer annual in Britain.
Propagating it: Seed - surface sow or only lightly cover the seed in spring in a greenhouse. The seed usually germinates in 5 - 14 days at 25°c. When large enough to handle, prick the seedlings out into individual pots and plant them out in late spring. Day time temperatures below 20°c depress germination but a night time fall to 20° is necessary.
Best place to grow: Cultivated Beds;
Habit: Annual
Hardiness: 0-0
Growth:
Soil: Light (sandy), medium
Shade: No shade
Moisture: Dry, moist