The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Plantago indica
Branched plantain is a small annual herb of dry, sandy ground, grown mainly for its seeds as a laxative source rather than as an ornamental. It is a species in the plantain family, native across Europe, North Africa and Asia and naturalised elsewhere.
Plantago indica, commonly known as branched plantain, sand plantain, or black psyllium, is a flowering plant in the plantain family Plantaginaceae, and is one of a group of species in the genus Plantago formerly treated by some authors in a separate genus Psyllium. The plant is native to parts of Africa, Europe, Russia, and Asia, and is naturalised in many other areas such as Australia and North America. The plant can be found mostly in dry inland areas, such as those that are sandy, and also grows on roadsides and in meadows. The plant is not used broadly as a food source, but has been cultivated for its seeds which serve a medicinal use as a laxative.
Plantago indica has been widely listed as P. arenaria, a later synonym, and also extensively confused with the related species Plantago afra (glandular plantain).
Plantago indica is native to North Africa, most of Europe (except the far north), southwest Asia from Jordan to Turkey and Iran, western and central Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. The plant has become broadly naturalised in areas of Australia, China, India, Japan, Pakistan, North America, and more locally in South America. The plant is commonly found in sandy areas such as in arid deserts and on sandy beaches, and has also been seen distributed on roadsides, and by railroad tracks.
The seeds, known as French psyllium or black psyllium, are medicinally cultivated, along with other species under the psyllium common name, such as P. ovata, for use as a laxative for constipation and are also used to treat irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and diarrhea by extracting the mucilage from the seed coat. The mucilage from the seeds has also been reported to lower the risk of coronary heart disease.
Chinese Plantain · Buckhorn plantain · Dotseed plantain · Ribwort Plantain · Greater Plantain · Goose tongue · Hoary Plantain · Desert Indianwheat · Plantain
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Plantago indica by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
