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Apiaceae family

Spadeleaf Centella asiatica

Native

Also known as: Asiatic pennywort · Centella

Spadeleaf is a perennial shrub native to the Pacific Basin. It grows to 0.4 ft and blooms Apr – Jul.

More about this plant

Centella asiatica, commonly known as Indian pennywort, Asiatic pennywort, spadeleaf, coinwort or gotu kola, is a herbaceous, perennial plant in the flowering plant family Apiaceae. It is native to tropical regions of Africa, Asia, Australia, and islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It is consumed as a culinary vegetable and is used in traditional medicine. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY

Conditions

Sources · Conditions

Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness

Hardiness: ≥ zone 9 derived from its U.S. range

Size & form

Sources · Size & form

TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage

USDA PLANTS — Lifespan

Height: 0.4 ft
Lifespan: Perennial
Foliage: Evergreen broadleaf

In the garden

Ground-cover layer — Sits in the ground-cover of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →

derived roles

The garden year bloom → fruit → fall colour

Bloom

Bloom (the flower's colour)

Bloom · Apr – Jul — 20 obs · Herbarium specimens — Park et al. 2023 (CC BY 4.0)

Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

How we know this (2) Methods & honest limits

Leaf build Direct fact

We read each species’ measured specific leaf area (leaf area per unit dry weight) from the Global Spectrum dataset and band it: thin & fast (high SLA), medium, or thick & tough (low SLA). The global median is about 10 mm²/mg.

Honest limits: A species-mean from pooled measurements — individual plants vary with light and site. A broad strategy signal, not a precise per-plant figure.

Díaz, S. et al. (2022) The global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset. Scientific Data 9:755.

Climate niche (heat tolerance & native rainfall) Derived

We take the plant’s U.S. county range and look up each county’s long-term climate, then summarise: native rainfall = the median annual rainfall across its counties; heat tolerance = the warm end (90th percentile) of average temperature across its range (mirroring how our cold-hardiness floor uses an extreme). Counties + medians blunt the roadside/observer bias that makes point-level climate unreliable. Needs at least five placeable counties.

Honest limits: A realized, sampling-biased niche (where it has been recorded, not its physiological optimum), and county climate is coarse — large Western counties span deserts and mountains. Derived guide, never a measured fact.

Realized-niche / climate-envelope approach (Pearson & Dawson 2003; Soberón 2007). Climate: NOAA NCEI nClimDiv county normals (1991–2020).

Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →

Sources for this entry (21) Open & cited

[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)

[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)

[06] Wetland indicator — USACE National Wetland Plant List (2022)

[07] Photos — iNaturalist — CC, credited per image

[08] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)

[09] Ecological value — GloBI

[10] Bloom period — Herbarium specimens — Park et al. 2023 (CC BY 4.0)

[11] Conservation rank — NatureServe Explorer (CC BY)

[12] Foliage — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[13] Height — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[14] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[15] Climate niche — Derived — realized climate niche from U.S. county occurrences (GBIF) × NOAA NCEI county climate normals 1991–2020 (public domain)

[16] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones

[17] Mycorrhiza — FungalRoot v2.0 · Meng et al. 2024 (Dryad, CC0)

[18] Chromosomes — ChromoDB — IAPT/IOPB chromosome data series (Zenodo, CC BY 4.0)

[19] Human uses — Dr. Duke's Phytochemical & Ethnobotanical Databases (USDA, CC0)

[20] Other common names — Wikidata (CC0)

[21] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county

Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.

Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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Ecological value open data

1 / 5 Keystone

Keystone (host) value — caterpillar, specialist-bee & monarch hosting. A low number means “not a keystone host,” not “low value”: generalist flower-visitor value is shown separately below.

Caterpillar host 1

Deep dive

Caterpillar host · 1/5 — native butterfly & moth caterpillars that feed on this genus — the base of the food web (more caterpillars → more songbirds). Genus-level keystone count from Warren II 2026 (CC0; Tallamy host-use records), gap-filled by our GloBI derivation.

Counts are genus-level and banded 0–5. Full rubric →

Host / keystone value from open interaction data. How this is scored →

📍 In your area live

Native to the U.S.

Recorded in 3 states.

Open occurrence records place it in 42 counties across 10 states · GBIF (CC0/CC-BY)

Native — Pacific Basin (excl. Hawaii)

Introduced — Hawaii and Conterminous United States

Recorded in 3 states/territories

Conservation

Conservation status G5 — Secure

Invasive? Native

Wetland indicator FAC

What do these ranks mean?

NatureServe ranks risk 1–5 (1 = rarest), globally (G) and per-state (S). A species can be secure worldwide yet at risk in your state. NatureServe →

Toxicity & pet safety

Check the ASPCA pet database →

Educational, not veterinary advice. If you suspect your pet ate this plant, contact a vet or pet poison-control line.

Documented human uses Dr. Duke's

Medicinal use 64 use-records

Historically recorded for

TonicLeprosyDiureticAlterativeFeverEyeMedicineNarcoticRefrigerantStimulantAbdomen TumorAlexitericAnodyneAphrodisiacAstringentBoil +25 more

A historical record of how this plant has been used — not medical or dietary advice, and not a claim that it is effective or safe. Many plants are toxic; never ingest or treat with a wild plant without expert guidance and a confirmed identification. Dr. Duke's →

Functional traits TRY · Dryad

Seed mass small

2 mg

small seed — straightforward to sow

Leaf size small

Small

small, fine-textured leaves (measured leaf area ~6.8 cm²)

Heat tolerance subtropical

Thrives in heat

ranges into subtropical heat — very heat-tolerant

Native rainfall moist

Moist (~54 in/yr)

grows where rainfall is generous

Mycorrhiza type uncertain

Facultative

facultatively mycorrhizal — partners with soil fungi opportunistically, so it can grow with or without them; the specific type isn’t reliably documented

Chromosomes recorded

2n = 18

somatic chromosome number

Deep dive — what these mean

Seed mass 2 mg — average weight of one seed. Bigger seeds are easier to hand-collect & direct-sow; dust-fine seeds need surface-sowing.

Climate niche — the rainfall & warmth of where it actually grows in the U.S., from its county range. A realized niche (where it’s recorded, not its ideal), so read it as a guide. ~54 in/yr rainfall · warm-end avg 74°F across 41 counties (GBIF × NOAA 1991–2020 normals)

Measured traits from TRY + Werner et al. (N-fix), Fan et al. (roots) & FungalRoot — general guidance, not species-specific prescriptions.

More modules coming

Spadeleaf Centella asiatica

Growing & care

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