Distribution and habitat: Throughout India

Botany: A large gregarious tawny –villous shrub up to 0.9-2.4 m height with bluntly quadrangular branchless clothed with yellowish silky pubescence. 

• Leaves: Large, ovate, acuminate, entire or denticulate, base cordate, hairy on both sides. Petioles 3.8-10 cm long, cylindric, hairy.
• Flowers: White, tinged with pink in terminal panicles. Calyx 1.3 cm long in flower, silky pubescent, much enlarged in fruit. Corolla  pubescent  outside, white tinged with pink, tube 2 cm long, slender, lobes exceeding 1cm in length, oblong, obtuse. Ovary and style glabrous.
• Fruits: Drupes, 8 mm diameter, black, nearly globose, seated on the enlarged pink calyx containing 1-4 pyrenes.

Properties: Anti-inflammatory, demulcent, vermifuge

Uses:  Useful in tumours, leprosy and bronchitis

Propagation:  Seed