Bitterroot Restoration

Scientific classification

Kingdom: Plantae
 Division: Magnoliophyta
  Class: Magnoliopsida
   Order: Scrophulariales
    Family: Acanthaceae
     Genus: Ruellia
      Species: Ruellia prostrata

Common name: Prostrate wild petunia (English)

Synonyms: Dipteracanthus prostratus

• Bell Weed is a prostrate perennial herb, with stems often rooting at the nodes.
• Ovate green leaves, 2-10 cm long, have lower surface conspicuously paler.
• Flowers occur solitary in the leaf axils, each one subtended by oblanceolate to ovate bracts 1.5-2.3 cm long. Sepals 5, linear, 6-10 mm long.
• Flowers are violet blue to occasionally nearly white, 2.4-3.2 cm long, the petals slightly spreading.
• Capsules club-shaped, 1.5-2 cm long, densely covered with fine hairs.

Medicinal uses: It can be used as anticancer against the epidermis of the nasopharynx region and slightly hypoglycemic.