A perennial plant 5 to 60 cm tall with clustered unbranched stems; hairs more or less spreading. Leaves generally cauline and sessile or subsessile, strigose to soft hairy, linear to lanceolate, most are greater than 10 cm by 10 mm. Flowers borne in modified leafly-bracteate cymes, or singular in upper leaf axils; calyx deeply cleft; corolla more or less salverform, pale yellowish, often greenish tinted, 8 to 40 mm long by 7 to 13 mm wide. Fruit simple dry indehiscent.

Analgesic, antigonadotropic, antiseptic, contraceptive, diuretic (root)

Plants For A Future

An infusion or decoction of the root has been used in treating kidney complaints, internal haemorrhaging, diarrhoea, enterorrhagia, water retention etc. A poultice of the dried powdered leaves and stems has been used to relieve the pain of rheumatic joints.

James A Duke and Maryl Fulton. Handbook of Medicinal Herbs - 2nd Edition, P: 765, CRC Press July 2002.