Hathawariya Asparagus racemosus

Common name - Hathawariya

Botanical name - Asparagus racemosus

Family              - Asparagaceae

Life cycle - Perennial

Morphology

• An armed, climbing undershrub with woody terete stems and recurved or rarely straight spines, young stems very delicate, brittle and smooth
• leaves reduced to minute chaffy scales and spines curved in tufts or 2-6
• Flowers white, fragrant, in simple or branched racemes on the naked nodes of the main shoots or in the axils of the thorns
• Fruits globular or obscurely 3-lobed, pulpy berries, purplish black when ripe, seeds with hard and brittle testa. 
• The tuberous succulent roots are 30 cm to a metre or more in length, fascicled at the stem base, smooth, tapering at both ends.

Propagation

• By seeds and Tubers

Agricultural usage/ importance 

• Used as a medicine
• Competitor for water and sunlight against crops

Control method  

• Hand weeding