Purslane grows flat on the ground: stems creeping along the soil, leaves thick and fleshy like jade; snap a piece off and a clear, bright juice seeps from the cut.

A Prostrate Plate of Crispness

Purslane grows flat on the ground: stems creep along the soil, branching section by section, leaves thick and fleshy like jade, obovate, opposite in pairs. Snap a piece off and a clear juice slowly seeps from the cut—slick and faintly sticky.

It loves vegetable plots, garden edges, and brick cracks; the more a place has been hoed and turned, the sooner it shows up. The harshest sun cannot knock it flat, and pulled from the soil it still lives a while—the succulent stems hold water.

— Botany Notes, self-inscription —

A prostrate clump with no flattering bone;

cut, and the stem still drips clear light.

The Five Colors of the “Five-Element Grass”

Folk names call it the long-life vegetable and the five-element grass: leaves green, stems red, flowers yellow, roots white, seeds black—one plant carrying all five colors, and hence the name. A little wild vegetable with a whole set of doctrine in its name.

The name may not be the formal name of materia medica, but it tells the plant’s appearance exactly: red stems, green leaves, yellow little flowers, all in plain view, countable at a glance.

That Sour-Crisp Mouthful of Summer

It is the commonest wild vegetable of summer: pinch off the tender tips, blanch them, cool them, dress with garlic and vinegar—sour and crisp, the most appetizing dish of the hot season. Old people say it is cooling, and pleasant when summer heat weighs on you.

Two rules for eating it: first, take only tender tips, for old stems turn woody; second, blanch thoroughly. Its oxalic acid content is not low—blanching takes away both the astringency and part of the oxalic acid, and this step cannot be skipped.

• How to know it: Annual succulent herb; stems prostrate and reddish; leaves obovate, thick, opposite; flowers small and yellow; capsules open by a lid.
• Season: Flowers May–August, fruit July–September; plumpest and tenderest between summer and autumn—harvest tender tips.
• Caution: As a wild vegetable, blanch thoroughly before eating; oxalic acid is fairly high; those with weak digestion of the spleen and stomach should not eat much.

Between Medicine and Food

The whole plant enters medicine—clearing heat and toxins, cooling the blood and stopping dysentery—a common herb; folk practice also pounds it into a poultice for external application. It is both vegetable and medicine; the identity depends on how you use it.

Tender stems and leaves serve as a wild vegetable; the older growth is cut for pigs and poultry. A small prostrate plant with a destination for everyone, man and beast.

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Keywords: purslane · wild vegetable · five-element grass · summer