Mexican Tea
Chenopodium ambrosioides
Also known as American Wormseed, Sweet Pig Weed
- Habit
- Herb
- Found in India
- Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan & more
- Flowering
- Throughout the year
How to identify Mexican Tea
Identify Mexican Tea by combining habit, leaf characters, flower or fruit details, location, and its family pattern. Do not rely on one feature alone.
- Look for a herb habit.
- Check the distinctive field mark: Strongly aromatic leaves (Mexican tea).
- Confirm leaf shape: Lanceolate.
- Confirm flower colour: Green.
- Confirm flower arrangement: Panicle.
- In season, compare flowering and fruiting time: Throughout the year.
- In India, compare location records such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Telangana and nearby regions.
Plant Details
- Scientific name
- Chenopodium ambrosioides
- Genus
- Chenopodium
- Family
- Chenopodiaceae
- Habit
- Herb
- Habitat
- Degraded forests and wasteland
- Native to
- Tropical America
- Distribution
- Widely introduced in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia
- Found in India
- Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Jammu & Kashmir, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Assam, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Bihar, Goa, Ladakh, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Chhattisgarh, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Puducherry, Manipur, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Nagaland
- Flowering & fruiting
- Throughout the year
- Conservation status
- Not Evaluated (NE)
Leaf characters
- Leaf shape
- LanceolaterecordedLong and narrow, tapering to a point, like a lance head.“Dysphania ambrosioides is an annual or short-lived perennial herb, growing to 1.2 m (4 ft) tall, irregularly branched, with oblong-lanceolate leaves up to 12 cm (4+1⁄2 in) long.” — Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
Typical of the family
Characters marked “recorded” are for Mexican Tea itself; the rest are typical of the Chenopodiaceae family.
Flower & fruit characters
- Flower colour
- GreenrecordedGreen or greenish“The flowers are small and green, produced in a branched panicle at the apex of the stem.” — Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Flower arrangement
- PaniclerecordedA branching cluster of clusters.“The flowers are small and green, produced in a branched panicle at the apex of the stem.” — Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
Typical of the family
- Flower symmetry
- Actinomorphic (radially symmetrical)
- Inflorescence
- Panicle
- Fruit
- Berry
Characters marked “recorded” are for Mexican Tea itself; the rest are typical of the Chenopodiaceae family — flowering plants only.
Local Names
- Sinhala
- තම්පලා කුලය
About Mexican Tea
Mexican Tea (Chenopodium ambrosioides) belongs to the Chenopodiaceae family, where it grows as a herb. In India it has been recorded in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and 29 other states. It grows in degraded forests and wasteland. It flowers and fruits through much of the year.
Uses
In practice it is grown for parts that are eaten, long used in traditional medicine and used to deter insects. Those medicinal uses are traditional attributions, not medical advice.
Chenopodiaceae
Goosefoot Family
Mexican Tea belongs to the Chenopodiaceae family.
The illustration represents the family — not necessarily this exact species.
Explore the Chenopodiaceae familySnap it. Know it.
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Common plant problems
If you are starting from symptoms instead of a diagnosis, use the plant disease symptom checker to narrow the cause before treating.
All plant problem & care guides