A thorny, dioecious shrub or a small tree,, up to 6 m tall with dense foliage and prickly trunk and branches. Leaves trifoliolate or imparipinnate : leaflets up to 6 pairs, ovate to elliptic-lanceolate, sub-entire to glandular-crenate; flowers (both sexes) green or yellowish green, in axillary inflorescences; follicles reddish, subglobose, about 4 mm in diameter, single-seeded.

Sudorific and febrifuge (seeds)

Small amounts of volatile oil, fat, sugar, gum, acrid resin, a bitter alkaloid,believed to be Berberine and a colourless, tasteless, inert, crystalline body and Xanthoxylin.

Chronic rheumatism, typhoid and skin diseases and impurity of the blood, fever, children's ailments, common cold, cough, gastro-intestinal disturbances, heart ailments, kidney ailments, orthopedic ailments, pulmonary ailments and respiratory ailments. To relieve toothache (fruit juice)

Phytochemical Database. USDA - ARS - NGRL. Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. Beltsville. Maryland.