Purslane Portulaca “baqla hamqa”……“cooling” properties and the efficacy against headache and stomach and respiratory complaints (Nebel and Heinrich 2009)……in addition to 12.2 mg of α-tocopherol, 26.6 mg of ascorbic acid, 14.8 mg of   glutathione  , and 1.9 mg of β-carotene Portulaca oleracea L.Purslane belongs to the Portulacaceae family. It is a cosmopolitan weed witha large potential for infestation due to the high number of seeds produced per plant (up to500 seeds/kg of soil). In the last period, this species has received renewed scientific interest after the identification of some nutritional properties, first among all, theEthnobotany, Nutritional Traits, and Healthy Properties of Some Halophytes noticeable content of polyunsaturated ω-3 fatty acids (Simopoulos et al. 2005). The relevance acquired by this species is so high to be proposed as a new crop, power food of the future (Gonnella et al. 2010). The Latin name means “little door” or also porto (as carry) plus lac (as milk), referred to the succulent consistency of stems and leaves. The ancient Arab nameas “baqla hamqa” which stands for “crazy vegetable.” Common names are also verdolaga (Spain), beldroega (Portugal), poupier (France), portulaca (Italy), andandrakla (Greece). For purslane, as well as for some other wild species known as food plants, a cognate (a set of words in related languages developed from the same ancestral word) (Nebel and Heinrich 2009), between the modern Greek andrakla andthe Greaganic andrácla, indicates from how much time this species is gathered and used for food supply since the Graecanic language developed in Southern Italy when this area was a colony of Magna Grecia (eighth century B.C.). Indeed, besides being consumed in the same way in Greece and in Southern Italy, purslane was reported by Hippocrates, Theophrastus,and Dioscorides as a useful plant for its fresh leaves eaten as a salad as 

 well as for “cooling”   properties and the efficacy against headache and stomach and respiratory complaints (Nebel and Heinrich 2009). The geographical origin is uncertain (Ocampo and Columbus 2012), probably collocated in the Asian area; anyway, purslane is widespread in the Mediterranean area and Middle East, but also in the USA and Australia. Its food use is widespread in all the Mediterranean countries from North Africa to South Europe, extending to the Middle East and some Northern European areas . Leavesand stems are used rawin mixed salads together with tomatoes, cucumbers, capers, and raw red onion (Fig. 3). But it is also cooked in soups and other dishes. It has a sourish taste similar to spinach.Purslane is a summer plant, C4 succulent species, capable of inducting the CAM cycle under drought stress (D’Andrea et al. 2014) and can adapt to poor soils and low water availability. Its geographical, morphological, and physiological plasticity Fig. 3 Salad of purslane with tomatoes, cucumbers, capers,and raw red onion. M. Renna and M. Gonnella determined the success of this species, able to colonize several inhospitable habitatsalmost in each continent. It is moderately salt tolerant with a threshold value of 6.3 dS/m (Kumamoto et al. 1990) and has been proposed as a prospective halophytic for desalinating saline soils (Grieve and Suarez 1997). Purslane plants can give a remarkable contribution to the main crop consociated (for example, tomato) to face conditions of high salinity (Graifenberg et al. 2003), probably by removing Na+ andCl from the cultivation medium. It seems that purslane applies a mechanism of accumulation of large amounts of both ions in the large vacuoles typical of the succulent leaves (Teixeira and Carvalho 2009) even up to toxic levels, though NaCl concentration of 200 mM in the nutrient solution can cause the death of the older leaves only (Mulry et al. 2015). Definitely, purslane is unable to exclude NaCl fromthe tissues but applies mechanisms to reduce the damage, by isolating the toxic ions in the vacuoles and synthetizing proline or betalain pigments to adjust the osmoticpressure (specifical proline is capable of both functions). At the same time, these compounds act also as antioxidants facing the reactive oxygen speciesinduced by salinity stress (Mulry et al. 2015).Purslane is a very good source of α-linolenic acid (ω-3), also prevailing on the linoleic acid (ω-6) content. Being one of the richest species in lipids among the wild vegetables  (3.8 g/100 g dry weight as assessed by Guil-Guerrero and RodríguezGarcía 1999), 100 g of fresh purslane leaves can provide 300–400 mg of α-linolenic acid (the prevailing fatty acid in the glycolipid fraction in purslane), in addition to 12.2 mg of α-tocopherol, 26.6 mg of ascorbic acid, 14.8 mg of glutathione, and 1.9 mg of β-carotene  (Gonnella et al. 2010). Due to these nutritional traits, purslane has been attributed to health properties to counteract heart diseases (fatty acids), cancer and inflammatory diseases (antioxidant compounds), and scurvy 

 (vitamin C), in addition its antiseptic, febrifuge, diuretic, and vermifuge effects (Gonnella et al. 2010).The introduction of purslane in the human diet is limited by a particularly high content of oxalic acid (from 9.1 to 16.8 g/kg fresh weight), even more than spinach(Noonan and Savage 1999).[ MY REMARK: NOT TO WORRY WITH THE TINCTURE……drinks plenty]Moreover, purslane has been classified as high nitratespecies (more than 2500 mg/kg fresh weight), but its content is greatly influenced by the growing conditions. Actually, as shown by several research articles, each nutritional and anti-nutritional properties (fatty acids, oxalic acids, and nitrate content)can be changed favorably by applying appropriate growing techniques acting onsome technical (firstly nitrogen nutrition) parameters (Gonnella et al. 2010). On the other hand, the extraordinary content of antioxidant compounds in purslane is partlydue to its salt tolerance since a common mechanism induced by salt stress in several halophytes is the activation of the antioxidant synthesis, even at a different gradedepending on the genotype (Alam et al. 2015). The scarcity of vegetable sources of ω-3 fatty acids has stimulated studies about the cultivation, though attempts made on soil systems have been hampered by the excessive production and dispersion of seeds (each capsule contains a lot of very small seeds – the weight of 1000 seeds is 0.13 g) with serious problems to manage the following crops.