Flora of Israel: Little hogweed

Portulaca oleracea, Little hogweed, Purslane, Garden purslain,
Hebrew: רגלת הגינה, Arabic: رجلة, Egypt: رجلة “Rigla”

Scientific name:   Portulaca oleracea L.
Common name:   Little hogweed, common purslane, purslane, Garden purslain
Hebrew name:   רגלת הגינה
Arabic name:   رجلة
Egypt:   رجلة “Rigla”
Family:   Portulacaceae, רגלתיים


Life form:   Therophyte, annual
Succulence:   Stem + leaf succulent
Stems:   Prostate, glabrous, succulent herb; branches many, leafy, brittle
Leaves:   Alternate, opposite, sessile, fleshy, deltoid to oblong-obovate, entire
Inflorescence:   Flowers sessile, in dense clusters
Flowers:   Sepals unequal, joined into a short tube at the base; petals yellow, slightly joined, longer than the sepals; stamens 7-15
Fruits / pods:   lid-capsule, unilocular, thin-walled; seeds reniform, tuberculate, black
Flowering Period:   January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September
Habitat:   Cultivated areas (weeds)
Distribution:   Mediterranean Woodlands and Shrublands, Semi-steppe shrublands, Shrub-steppes, Deserts and extreme deserts, Montane vegetation of Mt. Hermon
Chorotype:   Plurireginal, boreal-tropical
Summer shedding:   Ephemeral


Derivation of the botanical name:

Portulaca, from Latin portare, “to carry” and lac, “milk”, referring to the milky sap.Some people say that Portulaca means “little door”, because of the way its capsule opens. Pliny (23–79) named the plant porcil-aka, a word with no known meaning that, in time, became portulaca. Then, because it sounded like “porcelain,” the plant’s common name in England became “purslane,” a word in use since the fourteenth century.

oleracea, olus, holus, “kitchen vegetables”; aceus, resembles, of…, …like, mixture using, fragrance of; meaning “of kichen vegetables”.
The Hebrew name: רגלת, reglat, Post Biblical Hebrew purslane; related to Arabic: rijl, rijla (= purslane); probably derived from רגל, regel, respectively Arabic rijl (= foot).

  • The standard author abbreviation L. is used to indicate Carl Linnaeus (1707 – 1778), a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, the father of modern taxonomy.
  • Pliny advised wearing the plant as an amulet to expel all evil (Natural History 20.120).
  • Theophrastus (370 — about 285 BCE) names purslane, andrákhne, as one of the several summer pot herbs that must be sown in April.
  • Prospero Alpini (1553 – 1617), an Italian physician and botanist (spent three years in Egypt), says that the poor in Egypt ate it mixed in yoghurt, and it was part of cooling beverages and enemas for patients with a temperature. It is a source of Vitamins A, C, E, and calcium as well a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids. Purslane has been eaten as a vegetable, particularly fresh. The leaves are used in Fattoush salad, a typical dish eaten as a starter in Middle Eastern cuisine.

    • See the list of Medicinal herbs in Israel, the parts used and their medical uses to treat various diseases.