Medicinal Herbs

Green Chanca Piedra Extract

Phyllanthus niruri

Green chanca piedra (Phyllanthus niruri) is a small herb of ten to forty centimetres that rarely branches, its leaves set in two neat rows along each shoot so that a whole branch looks like a single pinnate leaf, dark green above and chalky pale beneath. Tiny petalless green flowers sit in the leaf axils, followed by smooth flattened capsules barely two millimetres across. In Vietnam it grows wild on waste ground and in fields and gardens. The whole plant is pulled in summer and autumn, washed and dried in the shade, though it is often used fresh. The taste is faintly bitter.