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.
Ruellia tuberosa
Also called Cracker Plant, Devil's Bit, Fever Bit, Fever Root, Meadow Weed, Popping Pod, Kencana Ungu
In Singapore: Meadow Weed, Minnieroot, Cracker Plant, Popping Pod, Waterkanon, 芦莉草 (Naturalised in Singapore)
Minnieroot is a small, low-growing flowering weed from the tropics of the Americas, now naturalized in Africa and Asia, grown mainly for its tuberous roots and violet funnel-shaped flowers. Its main feature is the popping seed pods that children play with, and it is more often found in fields and roadsides than grown in gardens.
Ruellia tuberosa, also known as minnieroot, fever root, snapdragon root and sheep potato (Thai: ต้อยติ่ง), is a species of flowering plant in the family Acanthaceae. Its native range is in Central America but it has become naturalized in Africa (Tanzania in particular), South and Southeast Asia.
Some butterfly species, like the lemon pansy (Junonia lemonias) and the mangrove buckeye (Junonia genoveva), feed on the leaves of Ruellia tuberosa.
Ruellia affinis · Ruellia asperula · Browne's Blechum · Tropical wild petunia · Brazilian wild petunia · Brazilian Petunia · Fringeleaf wild petunia · Monkey Plant · Softseed Wild Petunia · Limestone wild petunia · Wild petunia
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Ruellia tuberosa 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.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
