It is a very prickly perennial herb somewhat with woody base. Stem branched much and younger ones clothed with dense, stellate and tomentose hairs. Prickles are compressed straight, glabrous and shining, often 1 to 3 cm long. Leaves ovate or elliptic, sinuate or subpinnatifid, obtuse or subacute, stellately hairy on both sides, armed on the midrib and often on the nerves with long yellow sharp prickles. Petiole is long, stellately hairy and prickly. Flowers are in cymes or some times reduced as solitary. Calyx tube is short, globose and lobes linear-lanceolate, acute, densely hairy and prickly. Corolla purple, lobes deltoid, acute, and hairy outside. Anther filament is long, glabrous and anthers open by a pore. Ovary is ovoid and glabrous. Berry yellow, green-blotched and sorrounded by enlarged calyx. Seeds are glabrous.

Herbal Monograph
Herb Information

Fruit yields carpesteral, glucoside-alkaloids and solanocarpine; it aslo yields glucoside-alkaloids, solamine-S.; on hydrolysis it yields alkaloid solanidine-S.

Cough, asthma, bronchitits, dropsy, leprosy, constipation, flatulence, sore throat, tonsilitis, gum diseases, snake bites, heart disease, chest pain, certain types of fever, muscular pains, gonorrhoea, dysuria, enlargement of the liver and spleen and stomach. Leaves are applied locally to relieve pain. The juice of berries is used in sore throat. Like roots, seeds are also administered as an expectorant in asthma and cough. The plant is credited with diuretic properties and is used to cure dropsy. Its juice is mixed with whey and ginger and given in fevers. The juice of the leaves, mixed with black pepper, is prescribed in rheumatism.

Sharma PV. Classical Uses of Medicinal Plants.