Artillery Gun Plant
Pilea microphylla
Also known as Gunpowder Plant, Rockweed
- Habit
- Herb
- Found in India
- Kerala, Karnataka, West Bengal & more
- Flowering
- Throughout the year
How to identify Artillery Gun Plant
Identify Artillery Gun Plant 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: Tiny leaves, pollen released explosively when touched (artillery plant).
- Confirm leaf surface: Glabrous (smooth, hairless).
- Confirm flower colour: Green.
- In season, compare flowering and fruiting time: Throughout the year.
- In India, compare location records such as Kerala, Karnataka, West Bengal, Maharashtra and nearby regions.
- Confirm it sits within the Urticaceae family pattern, then compare close relatives before deciding it is Artillery Gun Plant.
Plant Details
- Scientific name
- Pilea microphylla
- Genus
- Pilea
- Family
- Urticaceae
- Habit
- Herb
- Habitat
- Weed in gardens
- Habitat type
- Cultivated, Wasteland
- Native to
- South America
- Distribution
- Introduced in most parts of the world
- Found in India
- Kerala, Karnataka, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Assam, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Mizoram, Odisha, Telangana, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Meghalaya, Delhi, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim
- Flowering & fruiting
- Throughout the year
- Conservation status
- Not Evaluated (NE)
Leaf characters
- Leaf surface
- Glabrous (smooth, hairless)recorded
Typical of the family
Characters marked “recorded” are for Artillery Gun Plant itself; the rest are typical of the Urticaceae family.
Flower & fruit characters
- Flower colour
- GreenrecordedGreen or greenish“It is monoecious (with both male and female flowers in a single plant) with smooth, translucent light-green, succulent-like and highly-branching stems.” — Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
Typical of the family
- Fruit
- Achene
Characters marked “recorded” are for Artillery Gun Plant itself; the rest are typical of the Urticaceae family — flowering plants only.
Local Names
- Bengali
- বারুদ উদ্ভিদ
- Malayalam
- പൈലിയ മൈക്രോഫില്ല
About Artillery Gun Plant
A member of the Urticaceae family, Artillery Gun Plant (Pilea microphylla) is a herb. In India it has been recorded in Kerala, Karnataka, West Bengal and 25 other states. It grows in weed in gardens. It flowers and fruits through much of the year.
Urticaceae
Nettle family
Artillery Gun Plant belongs to the Urticaceae family.
The illustration represents the family — not necessarily this exact species.
Explore the Urticaceae 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