Description
Common wireweed is a pantropical species widespread throughout the Caribbean.
Its vernacular Creole name is linked to the use as a broom of the branches of the different varieties of plants of the Sida family. A closely related but generally erect species Sida rhombifola is also called "broom".
Common wireweed is an erect or spreading sub-shrub from 40 cm to 1 m. Its leaves are glabrous (without hairs or thorns), alternate, ovate-lanceolate. They can reach 10 cm with a blade with a toothed margin at the acute or acuminate apex.
The flowers are solitary, pale yellow with a five-lobed calyx and only open in the morning with light. From the afternoon, they decline.
The fruits are round and flattened. They are pubescent (covered with fine, short hairs and down) towards the apex.
In Martinique, the plant is also nicknamed balai midi, balai savane or even balé midi, malé onzè, balé savann, balyé midi, balyé onzè, balyé savann in Creole. Otherwise it is under the names of sida à feuilles aiguës, sida aigu, herbe dure or herbe à balais that it is found. In the English-speaking islands of the Caribbean, it is called broom weed or wire weed. In the Spanish speaking islands it is escoba blanca, escoba dulce, malve.
Therapeutic virtues
Common wireweed is renowned in the West Indies for its therapeutic properties. It is known for its refreshing, antidysenteric and antidiarrheal properties.
It is also an anti-inflammatory that can be used in cases of gastric and conjunctivitis. The aerial parts are also used as diuretics, febrifuges and in local application against wounds.
Several Caribbean countries use the root as a febrifuge, antidiarrheal and stomachic.
The different parts of the pounded plant are applied as a poultice to strains and sprains.
The leaves contain saponins and a mucilaginous substance.
The whole plant contains carboxylated alkaloids: beta-phenetylamine, quinazoline, tryptamine, ephedrine, vasicine, cryptolepine. The latter is a very active hypotensive, antimalarial and antimicrobial alkaloid. These different compounds give the Common wireweed antibiotic, hypotensive, bronchodilator, spasmolytic, anti-inflammatory and mucilaginous properties.
Finally, the ethalonic extract of the whole plant is antivenomous.
En Guyane, les feuilles sont macérées dans de l'eau pour être employées comme shampoing assouplissant et antipellicullaire.
Au Mexique, les graines séchées sont fumées pour leurs effets stimulants et euphorisants.
How to grow it
Common wireweed is a plant present throughout the Caribbean and throughout the global tropical zone. It grows spontaneously in all wooded areas or near homes. It is a ruderal and cosmopolitan plant. Like all other broom grasses, it likes the company of humans, hence the fact that it is often found near houses, in grazed savannahs or even abandoned places.
It flowers almost all year round and reproduces by seed.
