It is a very prickly perennial herb somewhat with woody base. Stem branched much and younger ones clothed with dense, stellate and tomentose hairs. Prickles are compressed straight, glabrous and shining, often 1 to 3 cm long. Leaves ovate or elliptic, sinuate or subpinnatifid, obtuse or subacute, stellately hairy on both sides, armed on the midrib and often on the nerves with long yellow sharp prickles. Petiole is long, stellately hairy and prickly. Flowers are in cymes or some times reduced as solitary. Calyx tube is short, globose and lobes linear-lanceolate, acute, densely hairy and prickly. Corolla purple, lobes deltoid, acute, and hairy outside. Anther filament is long, glabrous and anthers open by a pore. Ovary is ovoid and glabrous. Berry yellow, green-blotched and sorrounded by enlarged calyx. Seeds are glabrous.

Anticancer (fruit and plant); alleviates spasms, stimulates the cardiovascular system and antiarrhythmic (fruit); antiviral and spermicidal (plant); expectorant and carminative (plant).

Solasonine, solamargine, solasodine and beta-solamargine (fruit); apigenin (flower).

Asthma and cough (root and plant); rheumatism (leaf); sore throat (fruit); as a carminative and in dropsy (plant), for relief in burning sensation in the feet accompanied by vesicular watery eruptions.

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