Distribution and Habitat: Throughout the West Coast, in forest lands and road cuttings, also cultivated as ornamental plants.

Botany:   A large glabrous shrub with few branches

• Leave: Simple, opposite, deccusate, elliptic, ovate or obovate, sessile or nearly so, main nerves 8-12 pairs, coriaceous, olive green when dry.
• Flowers: Scarlet, in dense sessile or short peduncled corymbiform cymes;
• Fruits: Globose, fleshy, smooth, crowned with the persistent calyx, purple when ripe, seeds concave on the ventral surface.

Properties: Antileucoderma, antidiarrhoeal, sedative

Chemical constituents: Lencocyanimin glycoside

Uses: It is used in hiccough, fever, anorexia, cephalalgia, chronic ulcers, and skin diseases, diarrhea, catarrhal bronchitis, ophthalmopathy, leucorrhoea

Formulations: Cemparatyadi tailam, Parantyadi tailam

Propagation:  By stem cuttings and seeds