Common Purslane - introduced (*Portulaca oleracea)

Other names: Pigweed, Munyeroo.

Family: Portulacaceae (Purslane family).

Cosmopolitan.

Occurrence: Pigweed is a common summer garden weed.

Identification:

• it is a prostrate, summer-growing plant
• it has succulent, fleshy stems and leaves
• the succulent stems are often reddish brown
• the flowers are yellow.

Pigweed has a world-wide distribution, including Australia. In Central Victoria it grows as a weed, particularly in well-watered summer gardens, and is treated in this publication as a weed.

It is killed by frosts.