Andrographis paniculata (Chuan Xing Lian, King of Bitters)

I had a bad sorethroat the one day and desperately needed to get well quickly to conduct my class. Dad had advised me to pluck a nice big leaf of King of Bitters, which I only knew then as "the really bitter plant" from our garden and to chew the leaf finely and then swallow it. 

This leaf is a lot more bitter than bittergourd. But, the relief it gave me to my sorethroat was almost instant. The sorethroat never came back after that one leaf. I came to learn that it is call Chuan Xing Lian in Chinese and this has allowed me to find the various resources about it from the web, including scientific papers about it. My dad had called it the Chinese antibiotics but I doubted him until I started reading about it.

Web resources on Andrographis paniculata (Chuan Xing Lian, King of Bitters):

1. Link from How stuff works

2. Uses and Side effects from WEBMD

3. Detailed scientific study by examine.com with reference to 70 over scientific papers

Leaves of Andrographis paniculata (Chuan Xing Lian, King of Bitters)

Flower of Andrographis paniculata 
(Chuan Xing Lian, King of Bitters)

Plant of Andrographis paniculata 
(Chuan Xing Lian, King of Bitters)

Flower and flower buds of Andrographis paniculata 
(Chuan Xing Lian, King of Bitters)

I cannot tell the difference between Andrographis paniculata 
(Chuan Xing Lian, King of Bitters) on the left and 
Oldenlandia (Snake Tongue, Bai hua she she cao ) on the right.