Botany
The weed is a small, suberect, prickly, hairy herb, 0.5 to 1.5 meters high. Leaves are broadly ovate, 15 to 20 cms long, 12 to 23 cm wide, lobed at the margins, and densely covered with stiff wooly hairs above and wooly hairs and prickly spines on the nerves beneath; the lobes are triangular and 2.5 to 4 cm deep. Flowers are borne on lateral racemes. Calyx is shortly funnel-shaped, with ovate-triangular lobes. Corolla is densely wooly outside, white, oblong-loved, 2 to 2.5 cm long. Fruit is a berry, yellow, globose, 2.5 to 3.5 cm in diameter, densely covered with needlelike hairs, and many-seeded.

Distribution
Throughout the Philippines, in waste places and old clearings, at low and medium altitudes.

Uses
Culinary
In India, Thaland and Malaysia, fruit widely used as a sour-relish in curries.
In Thailand, a special kind of sauce called nam prek is made with the fruit.
Folkloric
Leaves used as poultices for swellings.
Decoction of roots used for body pains and discomfort after meals.
Decoction used for syphilis.
Roots used externally for baths for fevers and as poultice for itches, cuts, wounds and bruises.
Seeds used for toothaches – burned and the fumes inhaled.
In Bangladesh, used for coughs, asthma, fever, vomiting, sore throat and gonorrhea.
In India, used for female sex disorders.

Studies
• Seed Fat: Seeds yield a yellow colored oil, containing palmitic acid, stearic acid, oleic acid and linoleic acid.

Availability
Wild-crafted.

Additional Sources and Suggested Readings
(1)
Chemical Examination of the Seed Fat of Solanum Ferox L. / S K Gang and D R Gupta / Fette, Seifen, Anstrichmittel, Volume 68 Issue 6, Pages 449 - 450
(2)
Preliminary Cytotoxicity Screening of Some Medicinal Plants of Bangladesh / Mohammad S Rahman et al / Dhaka Univ. J. Pharm. Sci. 7(1): 47-52, 2008 (June)