Geoffray’s marshweed shoots

Name and identity

Kew accepts Limnophila geoffrayi Bonati in Plantaginaceae and lists Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam in its range. The Pha Tad Ke page prints “L. geoffrayi Bon.” and uses an older Scrophulariaceae classification. The Lao checklist lists L. geoffrayi separately from L. chinensis. Pha Tad Ke warns that similar “false bug grass” names can refer to more than one plant, so a shared local label alone does not confirm identity.

The Luang Prabang market paper lists L. chinensis as a different species; that entry is not used as food evidence for L. geoffrayi. L. aromatica is also a distinct species.

Lao food accounts

A 2006 Savannakhet village-use table lists L. geoffrayi, Phak ka nyeng, as a paddy-field food plant. The article describes it as a fragrant herb for keng noomai, bamboo-shoot soup, in rainy-season paddy context and reports drying plants for the dry season. A companion Economic Botany paper from the same authors, villages and 2002–04 field period describes the same soup and drying use. These papers are complementary accounts from shared field settings, not independent population samples.

Pha Tad Ke attributes a similar young-shoot soup and dry-season drying account to stories from Lao friends, but does not name their community, dates or locality. A 2025 discussion also mentions the species as a soup herb, without linking that mention to a locality, informant or voucher table row.

Growing records and field context

The two 2006 Savannakhet papers place the plant in paddy fields. Their site description covers Nakhou and Bak villages at 140 m and 160 m elevation and reports an average annual temperature of 26.5°C and 1,473 mm annual rainfall, including 1,299.2 mm in May–October and 173.8 mm in November–April. These are study-location descriptors, not measured temperature or water tolerances for L. geoffrayi.

A 2024 Economic Botany abstract reports surveys of vendors and growers in Vientiane and Houaphan, and names L. geoffrayi among paddy-field vegetables grown for market. The separate supplementary table records a Vientiane row as “Wild & Planted” and “Home & Sale,” with voucher-number entry Y. Kosaka 120 FOF. It does not state this row’s method, garden location, plant part or yield. The abstract reports that L. geoffrayi had been grown since the 2000s; it does not specify a transplant history. The supplement’s transplantation footnote belongs to L. chinensis.

Food reports and their limits

The sources identify young shoots as soup herbs and report drying for the dry season, but give no complete household batch, drying conditions, endpoint or storage duration. The accounts are descriptive food records, not an executable recipe or validated preservation method.

No inspected source gives a frost threshold, soil pH, propagation protocol, household container method, greenhouse system, crop yield or current harvest permission. The 2024 table classification does not fill those gaps.

Research gaps

The 2024 main article body remains inaccessible in this review; its abstract and separate supplementary table do not explain the species-specific grower, method, date, plant part or performance.

Voucher code Y. Kosaka 120 FOF has not been linked to an examined herbarium specimen, and Pha Tad Ke’s food account has no voucher or named locality.

No complete household soup or drying batch with quantities, sequence, endpoint and storage was found.

No species-specific frost, heat, light, soil-pH, propagation, container or greenhouse data were established.

Similar local names and the older Scrophulariaceae placement require source-specific treatment; no field identity or harvest permission is approved.

Research status

The underlying plant account received a partial source review. Its review scope is described in the original plant article.