Botany:
· An erect, branched shrub 0.6 to 2.5 m high. Exceedingly variable and more or less hairy. Stem often with reddish branches.
· Leaves: pale beneath, ovate to suborbicular, 3 to 9 cm long, heart-shaped at the base, more or less toothed or somewhat lobed or angled, the lobes not exceeding beyond the middle of the leaf and the sinuses being usually broad and acute.
· Flowers: pink or purplish, about 1.7 mm in diameter and borne singly in the axil of the leaves, or somewhat in panicles. Petals 5, free above, connate below and adnate to staminal tube; staminal tube truncate or minutely toothed, anthers many, Ovary 5-celled, branches of stigma 10.
· Fruits: rounded by flattened and about 7 mm in diameter, with the 5 carpels covered with short, barbed spines.

Distribution
In open places, thickets, etc., at low and medium altitudes, ascending to 1,600 m.

Parts utilized
· Roots, leaves; preferably fresh.
· Collect the year round.

Properties
Sweet tasting, slightly cooling.
Antirheumatic, antipyretic, stomacic.

Folkloric uses
· Decoction of 30-60 gms of dried roots used for enteritis and dysentery, rheumatic pains, tonsilitis.
· Poultice of fresh leaves for snake bites, sprains, and bruises.

Availability
Wild-crafted.