| If a person lacks outdoor plant-growing land, then indoor plant-growing can be better than nothing. It is easy to raise attractive plants inside. But growing much good food indoors from plants is challenging. Perennial, tropical edible plants that rest little or never, growing year-round, are well worth testing. Therefore, I bought such a plant in June 2018, on eBay. This article shares what I learned. |
| Sissoo Spinach is a perennial vegetable clone of obscure origin. It is raised from stem cuttings. The names Brazilian Spinach and Samba Lettuce suggest it originated in Brazil --or was grown much there. It is also cultivated in Hawaii and Australia. The name Sissoo Spinach, used since the 1990s, puzzles me, and suggests nothing. Sabu Spinach is yet another name. The plant is barely known and grown sparingly as a summer annual in temperate, hot-summer regions, such as the continental USA. It needs warmth. |
| Unlike the original, common, temperate-climate Spinach, this species thrives in tropical warmth, but is intolerant of freezing weather. It can handle shade well, and prefers some in the tropics. Given rich soil and ample moisture, it is productive. The leaves are mild in flavor and not slimy textured. They can be eaten raw, but brief cooking is advisable due to calcium oxalate crystals. |
| Genus Alternanthera has about 80 species, in warmer, mostly tropical areas, native to the New World mainly. The flowers are insignificant ornamentally. |
| Plant scientists apply Alternanthera specific names inconsistently, in part because the genus is not well studied. About 10 species have been reported eaten as wild vegetables. One or two species is/are grown widely in dozens of varying cultivars as a foliage ornamental, most often as a bedding plant, very rarely indoors. Some species (A. Reineckii mainly) are used in aquaria. Some species are weedy --Alligator Weed, Tucker weed, Joy Weed. |
| To make Sissoo Spinach thrive in a pot indoors, give it steady warmth, fertile soil, and ample moisture. My specimen may get too much light or too little moisture. When I obtained it in June 2018, I kept in indoors until Seattle's summer warmed. Then it grew outside in a pot until October, when I brought it indoors. One day, I cut off and ate its top; it grew back. The plant is neither an arresting beauty nor an eyesore. Its productivity is sufficient to merit my keeping it. |
| The leaves are bright green, in opposite pairs, vary in shape but in general are more or less heart-shaped or kidney shaped, crinkled or undulating. The leaves on my plant are all at most 3 inches in size --far smaller than those of common spinach. |
In my view, given the appearance of the plant's growth habit and flowers, it is almost surely a cultivar of the variable Alternanthera ficoidea. (I show below a photo of a narrow-leafed cultivar of this species. Note the strong flower resemblance to those of Sissoo Spinach.) Some writers call earth's most commonly cultivated Alternanthera by the specific name tenella Colla, rather than ficoidea (L.) P. Beauv. In my sleuthing, I cannot determine readily what name is more likely to be correct. Right or wrong, the older Alternanthera ficoidea name is used currently more often . . . A study showed that the leaves of Alternanthera tenella had 8.3% protein. Regular spinach has usually less than 3% protein.
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Sissoo Spinach June 7th ; photo by ALJ
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Sissoo Spinach August 24th ; photo by ALJ
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Sissoo Spinach October 2nd ; photo by ALJ
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Sissoo Spinach March 27th ; photo by ALJ
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Sissoo Spinach leaves ; photo by ALJ
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Sissoo Spinach flowers ; photo by ALJ
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Alternanthera ficoidea plant ; photo by ALJ
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Alternanthera ficoidea flowers ; photo by ALJ
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