Distribution and habitat: Found throughout the ever green forests of Western Ghats.

Botany: A slender shrub with sub-quadrangular white dotted dark green or purple stems and branches. 

• Leaves: Dark green, elliptic, acuminate at both ends, serrate, glabrous and main nerves 6-7 pairs, raised above.
• Flowers: White to lilac in axillary slender glabrous spikes.
• Fruits: Very rarely formed.
• Roots:  Adventitious roots arise from a few basal nodes also. The main roots as well as these nodal roots are used as raw materials.

Chemical constituents: Squalene, phytol, Vitamin E, campesterol, β-amyrin, stigmasterol,lupeol and β-tocopherol

Properties: Antioxidant and anti inflammatory property.

Uses:  It is used in lumbago, limping, inflammations, bronchitis, rheumatalgia, leucoderma, whooping cough, fever, bronchitis, pruritus, scrofula and fever.

Preparations: Sahacara, varanathi thailam, sahacharadi thailam

Propagation: Stem cuttings