An annual or perennial herb up to 1.5 m tall. Leaves simple, alternate, 1.5 to 7.5 cm long and 0.5 to 2.5 cm wide, lanceolate to linear, apex acute, margins serrate, base subcordate, pinnately veined; petioles 6 mm long, stipules 3 to 9 mm long, linear. Flowers pale yellow to orange, axillary, solitary or clustered of 2 to 3; calyx campanulate, 5 lobed; corolla 12 to 20 cm diameter, petals 9 to 10 mm. Fruits mericarps 5 to 11, 2 awns, 1 to 2 mm long at the apex, glabrous. Seeds dark brown, glabrous.

Aphrodisiac, astringent, cooling and tonic (root); antimicrobial, hypotensive and antiarrhythmic (plant).

PIER
Plants for a Future

Cryptolepine and other alkaloids (root and plant)

To treat nervous and urinary diseases and disorders of the blood and bile (root). Intensely bitter, it is used as an infusion and in conjunction with ginger to treat intermittent fever; it is also used as a stomachic, to treat chronic bowel complaints, and as an aphrodisiac; as panacea for rheumatism (whole plant).The leaves, warmed and moistened with sesame seed oil, are used to hasten suppuration and painful boils; in haemorrhoids, fevers, impotency, gonorrhea and rheumatism (roots and leaves).

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