Growing Chamberbitter--Mithridates' Curse or Blessing in Disguise?

Chamberbitter, variously known as Phyllanthus urinaria, leafflower, shatterstone, gripeweed, and Bhumyamalaki (Sanskrit) makes itself right at home in my northwest Florida garden. If I didn't know better, I would say it's a noxious weed. It has its way with every flower bed, the veggie garden, and any other cultivated spot in my yard. The seeds it bears on the undersides of its leaves spread easily by design. Every time I pull up one plant by the roots, several dozen more potential plants fall to the ground to take its place. Since it possesses such an obviously aggressive method of reproduction, I just had to know: where did this plant come from and what is it good for? An agent with the Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service thinks it might be something other than a noxious weed. Shawn Jadrnicek calls it "A Valuable Weed [that] Lurks in the Garden." If you click on this link that I've provided, scroll down to read his article. According to him, this weed is anything but noxious. In fact, if ancient Ayurveda practice has any credibility--and who can argue with thousands of years' practice--chamberbitter might well be the answer to my current (perennial) weed dilemma: seek and destroy or harvest and use? Hey, if the vanga sena treatment works--consuming seeds with rice water--I might soon be poo-pooing those gynecological symptoms that menstruating and perimenopausal women consider so burdensome. And that purported benefit would be only the beginning. Look what else chamberbitter has the capability of conquering:

• anorexia
• hyperacidity
• gastric burning
• peptic ulcers
• urinary disorders
• diabetes mellitus
• skin disorders
• liver disturbances
• anemia 

...Therefore, since the world has still

Much good, but much less good than ill,

And while the sun and moon endure

Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,

I'd face it as a wise man would,

And train for ill and not for good,

'Tis true the stuff I bring for sale

Is not so brisk a brew as ale:

Out of a stem that scored the hand

I wrung it in a weary land.

But take it: if the smack is sour,

The better for the embittered hour;

It should do good to heart and head

When your soul is in my soul's stead;

And I will friend you, if I may,

In the dark and cloudy day...

 

--from "Terence, This is Stupid Stuff," by A. E. Housman, 1896-- 

 

If there's any hope for my garden, it might be as a nursery for this pernicious--as most horticulturalists as well as naturalists consider it--weed that came aboard with some other, more delightfully ornamental, horticulturally recommended, exotic introduction to my landscape. The veggies I would like to see growing here don't find the soil or other conditions appealing, but the chamberbitter does for some reason. Could it be that Mithridates has finally found a way to confound the Western modus operandi in the garden of all places?

...There was a king reigned in the East:

There, when kings will sit to feast,

They get their fill before they think

With poisoned meat and poisoned drink,

He gathered all that springs to birth

From the many-venomed earth;

First a little, thence to more,

He sampled all her killing store;

And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,

Sate the king when healths went round.

They put arsenic in his meat

And stared aghast to watch him eat;

They poured strychnine in his cup

And shook to see him drink it up:

They shook, they stared as white's their shirt:

Them it was their poison hurt.

--I tell the tale that I heard told.

Mithridates, he died old.

--A. E. Housman, as above--