Botany
Cabello de angel is a slender, twining, smooth vine growing 4 to 6 meters or more. Leaves are ovate, 4 to 7 centimeters long, dark green, and pinnately divided into numerous, linear, distant segments. Cymes are axillary, containing few, erect flowers; the peduncles are 4 to 9 millimeters long. Corolla is deep red and salver shaped; the tube about 2 centimeters long and slightly enlarged upward; the limb spreading, 1.5 to 2 centimeters in diameter, and distinctly 5-lobed. Fruit is a capsule, ovoid, 7 to 8 millimeters long, with smooth, black seeds.

Distribution
- Found in Ilocos Norte, Bontoc, Nueva Viscaya, La Union, Pampanga, Bulacan, Rizal, Bataan, Laguna, Camarines, Albay, and Sorsogon Provinces in Luzon; and in Panay, Negros, Cebu and Mindanao, in thickets at low and medium altitudes.
- Cultivated in urban gardens.
- Now thoroughly naturalized.
- Native of tropical America.
- Now pantropic.

Constituents
- Leaves are reported to contain small amounts of alkaloids.
- Traces of hydrocyanic acid are also present in roots, stems and flowers.

Properties
- Roots are considered an effective sternutatory.
- Hindus consider the plant to have cooling properties.

Uses
Folkloric
- In the Philippines, leaves are used as poultices for bleeding hemorrhoids.
- Crushed leaves used for carbuncles.
- Seeds reportedly used as laxative by the Sino-Annamites.
- In Queensland, used as purgative, as snuff, and for snake bites.
- In India, powdered roots given as sternutatory; pounded leaves applied to bleeding piles.
- In Spain, powdered roots used as sternutatory; pounded leaves used for hemorrhoids, ulcers and breast pain.
- In the Antilles, roots are considered an effective sternutatory and the latex used for coryza.
- In Siddha medicine, leaves used for piles and diabetes; the leaf and stem decoction used for fever.
- In Ayurveda, leaves are used for stabilizing the gravid uterus.

Studies
• New Glycosidic Acids: Study isolated two new glycosidic acids, quamoclinic acids G and H from the glycosidic acid fraction.
• Glycosidic Acids: Alkaline hydrolysis of the ether-insoluble resin glycoside (convolvulin) fraction of the seeds yielded five new glycosidic acids, quamoclinic acids B, C, D, E, and F along with six organic acids.

Availability
Wildcrafted and cultivated.