A branching climber or shrub up to 1.5 m tall. Leaves ovate-oblong to elliptic-oblong, base rounded, apex acute, base rounded 3 to 10 cm long and 1.5 to 7 cm wide, thick, glabrous above and pubescent beneath; petioles 0.5 to 2.0 cm long. Flowers greenish-yellow outside, purplish within, borne in umbel-like cymes. Fruits follicles, fusiform, divaricate, striate, attenuate towards the tip. Seeds broadly ovate, elongated with 2 to 2.5 cm long coma.

The root has stimulant, alternative, antirheumatic properties; antiinflammatory (plant); diaphoretic, emetic and expectorant, antiallergic (leaf); anticancer (stem and leaf).

Tylophora indica

Tylophorine, tylophorinine and kaempferol (plant); various alkaloids (leaf);including tylophoridinidine (root).

In rheumatism, asthma, whooping cough, bronchitis and dysentery (root); in hydrophobia (leaf and root). Used for treating whooping cough, for reducing lochia, malarial fever, jaundice. They are used to treat diarrhoea and dysentery.

Should not be used by children, pregnant or nursing women, or individuals with severe kidney or liver disease.

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