Botany:
Amor-seco is a dense, leafy perennial grass, creeping and branching below, with short horizontal stems. Flowering stems are erect, 20-60 cm high. Leaves are short, linear-lanceolate, 3-10 cm long, 4-6 cm wide. Sessile spikeloet is very narrow, 3 mm long; callus is elongated, barbed; fourth glume is linear, acuminate, with a short and scabrid awn.

Distribution
A pest of a weed found throughout the Philippines in open places at low and medium altitudes.
Also occurs from India to China and southward through Malaya to tropical Australia and Polynesia.

Parts utilized
Entire plant

Uses
Folkloric
· In the Philippines decoction of root is used for diarrhea.
· In Ternate decoction used for those who might have swallowed poison.
· Decoction of entire plant as a diuretic.
· In Indonesia, plant used as poison antidote.
· In Bangladesh, root juice used for liver pain.
· Ashes of burned roots taken internally for rheumatism.
· In ancient Hindu medicine, one of several plants – curcuma longa, berberis asiatica, ocimum basilicum, trichosanthes dioica, azadirachta indica, among others, ground and mixed in equal proportion and applied over the body as an ointment for pruritus, skin eruptions, unticaria, and tumescence. Also mixed with other herbal plants as a purgative, pustulant and anodyne.
Others
· Livestock: In Bangladesh, whole plant used for cattle leg swellings.

Availability
Wild-crafted. 

Additional Sources and Suggested Readings
(1)
An Interpretation of Ancient Hindu Medicine / CHANDRA CHAKRABERTY
(2)
An Ethnobotanical Study of Madhupur, Tangail / M. Anisuzzaman, A.H.M.M. Rahman et al / Journal of Applied Sciences Research, 3(7): 519-530, 2007