Distribution and habitat: Found throughout India 

Botany: A large shrub or small tree up to 5 m in height with grey bark and young shoots clothed with stellate hairs. 

• Leaves:  Simple, alternate, bifarious, obovate, serrate, scabrous above and pubescent beneath.
• Flowers: Red, fading to lead colour, distinctly bilabiate, in axillary clusters of 2-6 together, staminal column fused with the gynophore, much exserted, suddenly deflexed. Calyx tubular, 2 cm long, some what 2 lipped, curved mouths wide. Petals red at first, fading to lead colour, separate but with the claws closely hooked together.
• Fruits: Greenish brown beaked, cork screw like 5 follicles, seeds numerous, angular, testa wrinkled.

Properties: Demulcent, lactifuge, astringent, aphrodisiac, diuretic and expectorant.

Chemical constituents: Root-cucurbitacin, isocucurbitacin; Leaf-tetratriacontanol, tetratriacontanoic acid and its tetratriacontanyl ester; α- and β- amyrin, friedelin, lupeol, taraxerone; Seed-diosgenin.

Uses: It is used in colic, scabies, empyema, gastropathy, diabetes, dysentery, diarrhoea, verminosis, ulcers, epitasis and flatulence

Propagation: By seeds