A small shrub, 4 to 6 feet high, with slender, spreading, rather angular branches, rough with short adpressed white hairs. Leaves alternate, 3 or 4 inches long, shortly stalked, unequally pinnate, with small, setaceous stipules, rachis stiff, tapering, hairy; leaflets in 4 to 6 opposite pairs and an odd one, very shortly stalked, each with a minute stipella at the base, oval-or obovate-oblong, entire, ½ to ¾ inch long, glabrous and bluish green above, silky with white adpressed hairs and paler beneath.

Depresses the central nervous system and hypoglycemic (aerial part); irritates the mucosa of the alimentary canal.

King's American Dispensatory

Indigotin, indican, phosphoric acid (leaf); from an alcohol extract of plant.

Epilepsy, lumbago, asthma, leucoderma, hemorrhoids and enlargement of the liver and spleen (plant); in damage to the liver (alcohol extract from plant); convulsions in infants, hysteria, chorea and amenorrhea.

Sharma Classical Uses of Medicinal Plants.