Distribution and habitat: Throughout India

Botany: A slender, much branched, tough laticiferous climber up to 1.5 m high with long fleshy, knotty roots numerous; root stock thick and short.

•  Leaves : Up to 10 cm long, simple, opposite, somewhat fleshy, ovate to orbicular, cordate based 3-10 cm long, often apiculate, glabrous, acute or acuminate, more or less pubescent beneath.
•  Flowers: In umbels, greenish yellow outside, purplish within, pedicels filiform with a number of filiform hairy bracts at their base.
• Fruits  :  Fusiform, divaricate, glabrous, follicles, 8 cm long, tapering to a fine point at the apex.
•  Seeds : Ovate with long coma.

Properties: Antitumour activity, bacteriostatic, emetic, cathartic 

Chemical constituent: alkaloids- Tylophorine as(-)- Tylophorine (Phenanthroindolizine alkaloid); Tylophorinine. Quercetin, Kaempferol and α - amyrin.

Uses: Useful against asthma, bronchitis, whooping cough, dysentery and diarrhea, rheumatic and gouty pains, hydrophobia, bronchial asthma

Propagation: Seed and cuttings