Distribution and habitat:  Western ghats, Sri Lanka, Malaya, China, India 

Botany: A stout perennial herb 0.9-1.8 m high, root tuberous, aromatic. 

• Leaves: 20-45 X 4.5-10 cm; sessile or nearly so, linear – oblong or oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, cuspidate, glabrous, base acute; sheaths long, glabrous, striate, compressed.
• Flowers: Odourous, pink,  in erect, decompound, lax or dense flowered  panicles 15-30 cm long, the branches short, ascending, with large narrowly linear deciduous floral leaves sometimes reaching  23 cm long, at the lower fork; rachis      pubescent or tomentose; pedicels short; bracts small, ovate, cupular. Calyx subcampanulate, 10-13 cm long, pubescent, corolla tube about as long as the calyx. Lip pink, bifid and the margins waved and erose; claw as long as the limb. Stamen arcuate, shorter than the lip. Style glabrous; stigma small.
• Fruit: Black, thin, globose, 17 mm diameter, irregularly rupturing. Seeds many, small, black and angular.

Uses: Neuro tonic, diuretic, hypothermic, antiulcerative.  It can improve appetite, taste and voice and is useful in bronchitis and diseases of heart, diseases of kidney, rheumatic fever, dyspepsia, cough and asthma

Formulations: Rasnadi Kashayam, Rasnadi churnum

Propagation: Rhizome