Distribution and Habitat: Indigenous to the Amazon rain forest. Found widely in Ceylon, tropical and subtropical India. 

Botany:  A climbing shrub. 

• Leaves: Orbicular or reniform, cordate or truncate, pubescent on both surfaces when young, margins ciliate, petioles long, pubescent.
• Flower: Male flowers pedicelled in nearly axillary cymes. Female flowers in elongate, solitary or twin, axillary racemes. Flowers minute, yellowish.
• Fruit: Drupe sub globose, compressed, hairy, red.  

Properties: Antispasmodic, diuretic, aphrodisiac 

Chemical constituents: oxo-aporphines, palmatine, berberine and isoquinone alkaloids.  

Uses: It is used for jaundice, rheumatism, dropsy, kidney inflammation and fever.  

Propagation: Layering