A bushy gregarious shrub, 0.9-1.8 m. in height. Leaves palmately 3-5 lobed, 20 cm. long and equally wide, at first brown, shining, later turning green; margins of leaves, petiole and leaf blade covered with glandular hairs; flowers dark red, crimson or purplish, in glandular corymbose cymes; capsules, 9 mm. long, 3-lobed, truncate at both ends; seeds greyish red with a caruncle.

Depresses the central nervous system and hypothermic (plant); antileukemic, emetic and insecticidal (seed); emmenagogue (bark decoction);

Beta-sitosterol, lignans (plant); jatropholones A and B (seed); jatrophine (stem bark); apigenin, histamine, tannin, vitexin (leaf)

Cancer, in urinary complaints (plant); skin diseases, for stomach ache, venereal diseases, blood purifier and boils (leaf); as an antidote for snake bite (root); for sores on the tongues of babies (leaf juice)

Chandel et al., Biodiversity in Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in India.