Touch Me Not - Mimosa pudica

Common Name :	Touch Me Not.
Binomial Name :	Mimosa pudica
Family :	Leguminosae
Bangla Name :	Lojjaboti.
Photo Taken :	Bangladesh

Name of this interesting plant is 'Touch Me Not'. In some places this is known as Sensitive Plant. When someone touches the leaf (sometimes any part of plant), it just folds instantly. Basically during two occasions it folds its leafs. From direct touch and when night falls. Binomial name of the plant is Mimosa pudica. It belongs to the plant family Leguminosae. In Bangladesh this is known as Lojjaboti. Other common names of this plant are Sensitive plant, Shameplant, Zombie plant, etc for its peculiar behaviour. This plant is native to South and Central America.





Touch Me Not (Mimosa pudica) is a low growing branched plant that grows as a bush. The leafs are compound and bipinnate. Leafs are very small and arranged equally at the both sides of the pinna of the plant. It has plenty of thorns, so harder for animals to invade this (although some insects do damage to this plant). This plant uses to propagate through its seeds. Also in next year it can regrow from the remaining roots. That's why this is an annoying weed and very hard to eradicate. This is a very common weed in most of the places in Bangladesh. They are mostly found around the unused lands, roadsides, etc places.





Mimosa pudica flower is having a globe shape with light pink color. Flower has plenty of stamens and filaments around the globes. This plant grows as a bush and flourishes with myriad number of those small flowers. Rainy season is the peak time for blooming of the flowers but you'd find less during other season in Bangladesh.

Fruits of Mimosa plant.

Photos of Touch Me Not (Mimosa pudica) were taken from St martin Island, Bangladesh. It was during my tour in January 2012. In Bangladesh this is known as Lojjaboti (লজ্জাবতী) and the flower is known as Lojjaboti ful (লজ্জাবতী ফুল).


This article has written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog https://icflora.blogspot.com/